社会亲密关系有助于人和动物对抗应激产生的伤害，减少心理和生理性疾病发生的概率。相反,社会亲密关系中断（如丧偶、离婚）可能是一种很强的应激源，严重影响心理和生理健康。由于传统实验啮齿动物的社会性较弱，因此它不是研究社会亲密关系中断的理想模型。而长爪沙鼠（Meriones unguiculatus）为高社会性啮齿动物，它的很多行为和生理特征（如稳定亲密的配偶关系、双亲抚养后代和对社会隔离敏感）与人类相似，因此它可能会为社会应激经历引起的相关精神疾病机制的研究提供一个有用的模型。在当前研究中，我们将分别对同性同伴、异性性伴侣以及有抚养后代经历的配偶沙鼠进行隔离饲养，检查社会隔离对其焦虑、抑郁和攻击行为、HPA轴、成体神经元再生和中枢催产素系统的影响。之后，再通过一系列的平行实验，检查外源催产素在阻止和预防由社会隔离经历引起的失调中的作用。

Social attachment protects humans and animals against stressors，and attenuate psychological and physiological disorders. While disruption of social attachment (e.g., loss of partners or divorce) can each be major stressors and impair the psychological and physiological health. Due to weak sociality, traditional lab rodent species are not good models for studying consequences of disruption of social attachment. Mongolian gerbil （Meriones unguiculatus）displays behaviors (e.g., stable pair-bonds,biparental care and sensitive to social isolation) paralleling human social attachment and thus provide an excellent opportunity to study the neurobiology of attachment disruption. The present studies use Mongolian gerbils to evaluate potential effects of social isolation on axious, depressed and aggressive behaviors, HPA axis, adult neurogenesis and brain oxytocin system. After these, a series of paralleling experiments to examine the role of oxytocin in preventing and treating the disorders from experiences of social isolation.