I guess this explains why I keep licking my lady friends
Female rats, like women, need each other to relieve stress
Filed under: women's issues | Comment (0)Through the course of evolution, female animals seem to have developed a strategy to cope with this: social support. Women mammals lick each other or lie against each other in times of stress. Ter Horst and his team discovered that female rats recover from stress better when they are surrounded by those of the same sex. This form of social support did not seem to have much of an effect on the brain of male rats. A mixed group added to the stress level.
The researchers worked with single sex groups only and the impact on females was striking. The social support stimulated the production of the neurotransmitter serotonin. That substance mutes the effects of stress the same way anti-depressants do. When the female rats are isolated, their serotonin system is not activated. “When you expose a rat to stress and then bring it back to its group, the others in the cage start taking care of the suffering animal. They will lick each other or lie against each other in times of stress, the males as well,” says Ter Horst.
Ter Horst doesn’t like translating his results to human situations, but here he makes an exception. “When women go through something stressful, they want to talk about it, again and again. That relieves their stress. Men don’t have that desire so much.”
via nrc.nl – International – Features – Female rats, like women, need each other to relieve stress.
Leave a Reply
