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Depressed Hamsters Help Researchers
Ant wrote to mention an ABC News article indicating that hampsters feel the same effects during the winter months as humans do. Known as Seasonal Affective Disorder (S.A.D.), winter-related depression affects up to 20 percent of Americans. From the article: "For example, if the animals spend more time hovering near the walls of their containers, rather than at the center, it's believed they feel more anxious. If they decline to slurp up tempting offers of sugar water, scientists take it as a sign of depression. Another test involves placing the animals in water and seeing if they swim or simply give up and float. Hamsters don't sink apparently, but float in water. 'The sooner they give up in the water, the more depressed they are,' Pyter said. 'If you give them an antidepressant they don't give up as quickly.'"
There is no "P". Dear god. After all those years of that fucking hampsterdance crap, people would've learnt that that's the wrong way to spell it.
If they decline to slurp up tempting offers of sugar water, scientists take it as a sign of depression.
The depression diet plan? Someone could make a fortune out of the book rights.
To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem. ~ h2g2
Hamsters don't sink apparently, but float in water.
These are some exciting results!
You learn something new every day. With results like these, how far away can self-replicating autonomous nanobots be?
Karma: Chameleon (comes and goes)
Exercise? Eat well? Get away? This article has no purpose to insult us geeks. But I did leave the best for last:
The only problem with all these studies with species that can't communicate is that there's more than one explanation for observed behaviour. But one always appears to attach an explanation that supports what one wants to find. How do you know that a hamster hovering near the walls is feeling anxiety? Or not drinking the water is depression?
WTF is a hampster?
Everytime you look at porn a devil gets their horns.
Assuming that other critters feel emotions the same way we do is foolish.
For instance, one of the symptoms of depression is sleeping too much. Based on that, we can conclude that bears suffer from extreme depression during the winter. After all, they do nothing but sleep.
Thats all well and good but did anyone stop to ask the hamster's how _they_ felt about it?
"Another test involves placing the animals in water and seeing if they swim or simply give up and float. Hamsters don't sink apparently, but float in water."
That's not the test to see if a hamster is depressed, it's the test to see if the hamster is a witch.
Yeah really. I mean their hamsters, right? Completely different biology involved. Now I have to get back to my windowless cubicle and finish that soda that's getting warm on my desk. Good thing there's nobody around on the weekends. I feel so alone...
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
People today aren't any happier. Gayer, maybe
Talk about going to the place where the light never shine
A depressed hamster is suffering from a condition known as SAD? Shoot him full of speed and throw him in the river and he makes like a furry outboard engine?
I nominate thhe discoverers of these critical scientific facts for an award.....
I can easily see that being relatively sedentary in the winter cuold be advantageous from a survival standpoint. Who says you have to be perky all the time?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I am the only one sick of trite/simplistic criticisms of scientific studies based on mainstream news articles? Maybe try to read between the lines rather than attack something based on what is most likely a simplification or omission for the sake of a mainstream audience.
"Hamster psychiatry is a pseudoscience," Tom Criuse told host Matt Lauer, later saying: "You don't know the history of rodent psychiatry. I do."
:-P
Sorry, couldn't help it. I haven't taken my vitamins today.
Adolfo
I, for one, welcome our new depressed overlords.
Americans (meaning USians) don't even live that far north (with the exception of Alaskians).
Up here at the 59th parallel (Stockholm) we're used to darkness!
Now I got depressed.
Ah yes, but many of those are so-called "sleeper" hamsters, genetically modified to live for decades (many have been around since the beginning of the Cold War.) Upon a posthypnotic command from their long forgotten Soviet masters, they are designed to turn into organic micronukes and volatilize a few city blocks in a sudden glare of actinic light. Fortunately, after the fall of the Empire no-one seems to know what that command is, but still ... you should be careful what you say to them.
... you don't live anywhere near Chicago, do you? Heh heh.
You, ah
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Let's see... cage up some hamsters, deprive them of natural light, natural surroundings, and buddies, give them an artificial sucrose-laden diet, see how they get depressed, give them drugs to make them happy? And then suggest that these results could apply to people?
Animal models for testing antidepressant drugs do have a surprisingly good track record of predicting clinical efficacy in humans. Drugs that work in humans show strong effects in these animal models
Get out of your cage, get into the open, make better relationships, find a job that respects you, stop moving home every couple of years, start talking to your family not shouting at them, eat decent food instead of that sugar-laden "lo-fat" junk you're stuffing your face with, stop watching TV, cut down on the booze, and the religion, and for baby jesus' sake, stop taking artificial drugs.
I agree with your statements about living a healthy life to cut the risk of getting depression, but for some people (e.g., those with genetic predispostion), regardless of their life style, are still afflected with depression. Furthermore, depression is no laughing matter. It has an enormous social and economic impact. For these people, antidepressant drugs can be life saving.
Whether or not this is true, I know I'd pay good money for an mpg of that. (how much Xanax does it require to get a hamster to hover?)
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
It's Seasonal Attitude Disorder. Attitude. Not Affective.
You put me in a bucket of water. Oh, that's nice. You could have at least made it warm water, but no. Oh, what's the point? I suppose I'll just lay here and drown. Hope that will make you feel good, drowning a poor hamster. Even if you pull me out of the bucket all I have to look forward to is running in a stupid wheel. I run and run and run but never get anywhere. And all I ever get to eat are pellets and water. Boy, there's a five star menu. It's all so pointless....
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Best advice I ever had when I had my depressive period - don't let the doctors near you, they'll fill you with drugs. I got myself through it and am a much better person for it.
I've seen what antidepressants do to people - my wife was prescribed them for stomach cramps.. took them for two days and the effect was so awful I hope I never see a human being in that state again. They work by making the person unable to function - the zombie effect. Sitting in a corner dribbling is not my idea of being 'helped' by drugs.
Anyway, if they're supposed to be hibernating, is it detrimental to their health to keep them up all year? How do the tropical (African?) hamsters fare compared with their northern (European) bretheren? And how many of them does it take to fly a coconut?
Hah! Scientific content and a more unrelated Monty Python reference from the same movie! Take that you guys who went for the easy "Are they a witch?" one!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Someone call Letterman.
I am picturing a hamster running on its little exercise wheel just stopping and thinking to itself "Oh what's the use? It seems like I run and I run and I run but I never seem to get anywhere."
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.