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.'"

Comments

HAMSTER. It's HAMSTER.

[l-ascorbic]

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.

Amazing stuff

[Yst]

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?

Re:Amazing stuff

[LiquidCoooled]

I like the way they put the minor disclaimer in ther "apparantly".
My bet is they actually checked out the principle.

On a slightly similar subject (ahem!) my kids have a hamster, we decided to call him "flump".
Lots of people ask us why, we don't usually say but "apparantly" thats the noise a hamster makes after you free them from a toilet roll tube with air pressure.

Tips according to the article...

[Chaffar]

Tips For Beating Seasonal Depression

Exercise Rosenthal suggests that going for a walk or jog, or doing some other form of exercise can also help beat the blues. Exercising is even more effective against SAD if done outside during bright daytime hours. Eat well It may be the time of year that you crave comfort foods that are full of starches and sugar, but Rosenthal says these foods can exacerbate seasonal affective disorder. Get away If all else fails and if you have the time and money, take a vacation to a sunny place.

Exercise? Eat well? Get away? This article has no purpose to insult us geeks. But I did leave the best for last:

Go outside Spend as much time outside as possible and when inside, try to maximize your exposure to natural sunlight.

Re:Tips according to the article...

[ciroknight]

You know, it sounds like you're right, but it seems anymore that the whole medical profession's advice is simply "Diet, exercize, get some sun but not too much, drink plenty of water". It sounds redundant every time you hear it, and some of us get pissed that there's not simply a pill we can take to fix us, but the truth is simply we weren't built to live the way we are today. We were hunter gatherers, we were used to being outside all the time, we were used to plenty of clean water, we were used to getting plenty of exercize just to find food, and the foods we ate were lean.

Now, it's too easy to spend your entire day without moving more than 100 feet (under your own power), to drink stimulants and sugar rich liquids, and to eat foods that aren't even digestible to some bacteria.

The medical profession can only offer that as advice anymore, as medicine can only take us humans so much further. Today they've got a pill for just about anything you could imagine, but it still doesn't replace the simple nessecities we as machines need to operate. We just haven't reached the point where we can compress water, fresh air and sunshine into a pill, and hopefully we never will.

So while it might be insulting, maybe you should take it as a wakeup call that your lifestyle is entirely unmaintainable. Maybe you should take their advice and shake the winter blues, and a few pounds that we could all stand to lose anyways. I don't need a hamster to tell me twice, and hopefully neither should a scientist.

The ultimate black box.

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:The ultimate black box.

[TCQuad]

The only problem with all these studies with species that can't communicate is that there's more than one explanation for observed behaviour.

In other news, hamsters can only tolerate 12 hours of constant fluorescent light before being driven insane by it. One hamster, who had been exposed to 16 hours per day for 60 days, was quoted as saying "I knew once I stopped struggling in that water, they'd put me in the box, man! And you don't ever want to go back to that box!"

Unidentified sources within the 16-hour per day hamster camp have stated that it's gotten so bad, even the reflection of the light from the plexiglass walls is antagonizing. It's driven the hamsters from their normal comfort zone into the wide-open middle of the box, where predators, if they existed, would be able to attack and where the only hope of escape is to run faster than the hamster next to you; as such, the hamsters have been gorging on sugar-water for quick-burning fuel.

Hampster

[Jebediah21]

WTF is a hampster?

Re:Hampster

[Anonymous Coward]

Part hamster, part hamper, the hampster displaces the capybara as the largest known rodent. The hampster thrives on dirty clothes, which it stores in its oversized cheek pouches.

Re:Hampster

[sacrilicious]

WTF is a hampster?

It's a p2p network for exchanging hams. Smoked, honey-roasted, bone-in/out, the selection is incredible. Sometimes it takes a long time to download, and the quality can be variable, but hey it's free.

Actually that's wrong...

[mrRay720]

"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.

Re:One more "study" sponsored by pharma?

[Rhinobird]

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?

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...

I found the flaw in this study! Look at me!

[Iron Fusion]

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.

Stop being glib.

[adolfojp]

"Hamster psychiatry is a pseudoscience," Tom Criuse told host Matt Lauer, later saying: "You don't know the history of rodent psychiatry. I do."

Sorry, couldn't help it. I haven't taken my vitamins today. :-P

Adolfo

Hovering Hamsters! (Leaping Lizards!)

[pedantic bore]

From the article: happy hamsters apparently spend more time hovering near the walls of their cages than near the center.

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?)

Marvin the Depressed Hamster

[HangingChad]

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....