The strain of an accompanying conspecific affects the efficacy of social buffering in male rats

Social buffering is a phenomenon in which stress in an animal is ameliorated when the subject is accompanied by a conspecific animal(s) during exposure to distressing stimuli. We previously reported that in male Wistar rats, the presence of another Wistar rat mitigates conditioned fear responses to an auditory conditioned stimulus (CS). Subsequent analyses revealed several […]