Fig. 2.

Adolescent access to an obesogenic diet (WD) and psychosocial stress (PSS) influence startle reactivity, anxiety-like behavior, and indices of sociability. (A) PSS (p = 0.035) and WD (p = 0.025) had opposing influences on the change in ASR responses from baseline. (B) PSS increased the fear-potentiated startle (FPS) (p = 0.0097). (C) WD consumption (p = 0.0002) and PSS exposure (p = 0.033) significantly reduce time spent in the open arms of the elevated plus maze. Post hoc revealed that WD rats exposed to PSS significantly decreased the time spent in the OA compared to the CD EXP rats (p = 0.0024). (D) The number of closed arms entries (a proxy of motor activity in the maze) was not affected by the experimental conditions (p > 0.0050). (E) WD (p = 0.0273) and PSS (p = 0.0256) reduced the number of social interactions in the social Y-Maze. Post hoc revealed that the number of social interactions was robustly decreased by the combined effects of the WD and PSS (p = 0.0134 relative to control). (F) The WD reduced the frequency ratio of interactions between the conspecific and the object (p = 0.047). The sample size for all behavioral tests was 14 rats per group (before outlier testing).