When research can wake up nearly half of my class, you know it is interesting! When it can help people recover from traumatic experiences, you know it is important!
Such is the case with recent research headed by University of South Florida doctoral student Shyam Seetharaman. He and his colleagues exposed half of a group of rats to a traumatic experience (half were controls). They then enabled half the rats to play and interact with other rats, as opposed to being in their normal cages. The results were staggering; Rats who were able to interact with other rats (make "rat friends") for 9 days had less stress when again exposed to the traumatic experience 3 weeks later.
In other words, rats that were traumatized had much stronger stress symptoms than control rats, unless they were able to interact with other rats.
So how exactly do they traumatize the rats? Well, they expose them to a cat. The rats are in no actual danger (the cat can't get to them), but they do not know this. The rats cannot escape the threat (they are in a small box), so this is obviously traumatizing. Rats don't like being some cat's lunch.
These researchers have consistently found that exposure to the cat increases various biological and behavioral signs of stress in rats. For instance, they display memory deficits (they can no longer complete a maze they knew before), increased stress hormones and also, they show less exploration in their behavior.
This work is consistent with a wide range of research on humans suggesting that social support can help people recover from (and even prevent) post-traumatic stress disorder.
Put briefly, this suggests that close bonds between soldiers, for instance, could prevent and treat PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). And that is pretty much awesome.
Reference
Seetharaman, S., Zoladz, P. & Diamond, D. (2009). Daily social stimulation ameliorates PTSD-like behavioral and physiological sequelae in rats exposed to chronic predator and psychosocial stress
*Shyam is an avid Cubs fan. Luckily, they don't play all day/every day or this research may have never finished. And luckily, he does a better job at research than he does picking baseball teams.
** I have no clue what "sequelae" is either :-)
