The objective of the present study was to characterize behavioural responses of male hamsters in each of three test contexts after they had experienced either a single social defeat or a neutral encounter. In experiment 1, hamsters were observed in a familiar social context (i.e., their home cages), and defeated males displayed different amounts of time and submissive behaviours towards a known opponent than a novel intruder, whereas males in the neutral-encounter groups did not show such differences. In experiment 2, in an unfamiliar social context (i.e., a Y-maze), defeated males generated submissive behaviours and fear memory towards a known opponent that they re-encountered 5-min and 24-h after the defeat. The formation of long-term memory was interrupted by an injection of anisomycin (210 mg/kg). In experiment 3, in a non-social, anxiogenic context, hamsters that had previously had different social experiences did not demonstrate additional anxiety in an elevated plus-maze, with the exception of males that had previously experienced repeated social defeats. Our data suggested that hamsters' behavioural changes following defeat are context-dependent and stimulus-specific. The experience of a single social defeat is sufficient to regenerate submissive behaviours and fear memory when reencountering a known opponent.
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