Sex-specific relationships between stress coping and avoidance behavior in adult mice

While the experience of stress is ubiquitous, the risk of developing stress-linked conditions such as anxiety and depression is related to maladaptive stress responses. In order to probe the relationship between stress coping, sex, and stress-linked behavioral outcomes, we exposed male and female mice to subchronic variable stress (SCVS) and measured the correlation between coping during the tail suspension stressors (TSS) of SCVS and avoidance behavior in the EPM. We found that females engage in more active coping, and there were no sex differences in avoidance or locomotor behavior in the EPM after stress. However, we found that greater active coping predicted greater avoidance in females, but less avoidance in males. The results demonstrate that coping strategies are dynamic across time in males and females, but the relationships between avoidance and coping strategy dynamics are sex-biased.