Effects of social buffering on fear extinction in adolescent rats

Across social species, the presence of another individual can reduce stress reactions to adverse stimuli, a phenomenon known as social buffering. The present study investigated whether social buffering influences the expression and extinction of learned fear in adolescence, a developmental period of diminished fear inhibition and increased social interaction. Quality of maternal care and degree of social investigation were examined as factors that may influence social buffering. In adolescence, male rats were fear conditioned and then given extinction training either in the presence of a same-age rat or alone. Animals were then tested alone for extinction retention. In two experiments, the presence of a conspecific robustly reduced conditioned fear responses during extinction training. Interestingly, a persistent social buffering effect was observed when the extinction and conditioning contexts had prominent differences in features (Experiment 1), but not when these contexts were relatively similar (Experiment 2). Neither quality of maternal care nor degree of social investigation predicted the effects of social buffering. These findings suggest that social buffering robustly dampens fear responses during adolescence when a peer is present and this suppression can persist, in some instances, even when the peer is absent.