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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2010 Dec 1.
Published in final edited form as: Nat Neurosci. 2010 May 16;13(6):745–752. doi: 10.1038/nn.2551

Figure 2. Effect of social isolation on ΔFosB and on susceptibility to social defeat.

Figure 2

(a) Long-term social isolation (n=4) decreases basal levels of ΔFosB in NAc shell [t=2.882, df=6, *P<0.05] and core [t=6.338, df=6, ***P<0.01]. (b) Representative brain sections showing ΔFosB levels in NAc of grouped-housed and isolated mice. (c) Social isolation triggers vulnerability to an acute social defeat (see Online Methods for details) based on the social avoidance measured on the following day (n=8–10), an effect rescued by viral-mediated overexpression of ΔFosB (n=12) in NAc of isolated mice. [Isolation: t=4.351, df=16, ***P<0.001, HSV-ΔFosB: t=3.030, df=22, **P<0.01.] Overexpression of ΔJunD (n=8–12) in NAc mimics social isolation by causing social avoidance after short-term social defeat [t=2.251, df=18, *P<0.05]. (d) Postmortem human NAc show decreased ΔFosB levels in depressed patients compared to matched controls (n=8) [t=3.416, df=14, **P<0.01]. ns, non-specific band unrelated to ΔFosB.