A shared transcriptional network in the nucleus accumbens supports resilience to chronic stress across sex

Abstract Although chronic stress increases the risk for depression, only a subset of exposed individuals develop psychiatric illness. The biological mechanisms that protect against depression remain incompletely understood, particularly at the molecular level. Here, we identify a transcriptional network in the nucleus accumbens (NAc), a central brain reward region, that supports stress resilience in both sexes and demonstrate the causal contribution of key hub genes. Using chronic social defeat stress, RNA-seq, and co-expression network analysis, we find sex-specific but overlapping gene modules linked to resilience, anchored by shared hub genes embedded within a common network architecture. Overexpression of these hub genes in stress-naive mice confers stress protection and induces a transcriptional state that is discrete from both susceptible and resilient profiles. These findings position resilience as a structured and targetable molecular phenotype and provide a basis for investigating sex-informed mechanisms of stress adaptation. Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest.