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.'"

Interesting

[Hope Thelps]

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.

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?

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.

Hampster

[Jebediah21]

WTF is a hampster?

What about therapy

[anarchyboy]

Thats all well and good but did anyone stop to ask the hamster's how _they_ felt about it?

Re:Tips according to the article...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, they still have
Light therapy Some studies have shown that flicking on extra bright fluorescent light boxes at dawn or as soon as you wake can help diminish the effects of seasonal affective disorder.

Now that is a nice technical solution. Especially with the "as soon as you wake" part, which can be 3pm after a hard night's gaming.

And Go Away is advice that girls have been giving geeks since, well, as long as there have been geeks.

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.

Re:Hampster

[Anonymous Coward]

"WTF is a hampster?"

Obviously, Hampster is the RIAA's answer to Napster.

from Hamper:
Etymology: Middle English
1 a : to restrict the movement of by bonds or obstacles : IMPEDE b : to interfere with the operation of : DISRUPT
2 a : CURB, RESTRAIN b : to interfere with : ENCUMBER

Dirty Hampster

[Anonymous Coward]

"WTF is a hampster?"

You throw a dirty hamster into one of those.

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: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: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...

Re:Dubious

[Albert Sandberg]

People today aren't any happier. Gayer, maybe

Talk about going to the place where the light never shine

Ignoble Award Nominee

[Sly Mongoose]

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.....

Re:Actually that's wrong...

[sunwolf]

But the question is, does it weigh as much as a duck?

Re:The ultimate black box.

[surprise_audit]

How do you know that a hamster hovering near the walls is feeling anxiety?

Well, that's obvious - if the hamster's feet aren't touching the floor it will drift helplessly around its cage, bouncing off the walls and ceiling, propelled by any random passing breeze. That would make any sentient being anxious...

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

Obligatory

[vasko]

I, for one, welcome our new depressed overlords.

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.

Bah, southerners!

[jeorgen]

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.

Re:those things are lovely!

[ScrewMaster]

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, ah ... you don't live anywhere near Chicago, do you? Heh heh.

Re:HAMSTER. It's HAMSTER.

[saskboy]

There's plenty of P in hampster cages.
Why do you think the P is in there?

And I learned in school that "learnt" isn't a word.

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?)

Re:Hampster

[Dun Malg]

I only caught the typo once in the blurb

Actually, it's not a typo. A typo (short for typographical error) is an error caused by hitting the wrong keys while using the keyboard. "Hampster" is a spelling error. The difference is that the former is not a sign of ignorance.

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....

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.

Takeaway: Hamsters float!

[behindthewall]

Someone call Letterman.

Depressed Hamster

[craXORjack]

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."