Anxiety is a behavioral response triggered by: stress, fear of outcomes, or apprehension of an imminent event. Symptoms of this response usually include a feeling of nervousness, unease, or worry-some tendencies. Due to the key component of anxiety being stress, there is a state of mental strain among the individuals or organisms enduring this response. In years past, scientists have observed and concluded findings of anxiety-like behaviors in humans and different vertebrae species. For the first time in history, scientists from the University of Bordeaux have found traces of this same behavior in invertebrates. Science Daily has published an article on the twentieth of June in 2014 that is a representation of the actual study. Although it
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This study demonstrates that stressed crayfish express context-independent anxiety-like behavior that can be promoted by 5HT (electric fields) and abolished by an anxiolytic called benzodiazepine. The study was designed by exposing crayfish to an electric field for thirty minutes and then placing them into an aquatic dark/light shaped maze that was divided into two shaded arms and two lightened arms along with a middle starting zone. They had placed exposed and non-exposed crayfish in the maze to observe their behaviors. To distinguish these characteristics, the researchers observed and recorded the distance walked and the number/duration of the visits in each compartment in a 10-minute time span. In general, crayfish enjoy dark areas. This is why the duration and anticipation of entering different rooms was a major attribute to this study. The control group (unstressed crayfish) tended to explore the entire maze, whereas the exposed crayfish tended to favor the dark areas and often ceased movement before entering the lightened areas. Aversive responses of tail-flips were also recorded. Aside from the physical discoveries, blood glucose levels were also increased in the stressed crayfish. To argue the correlation between stress and anxiety, the study states: “These changes were not due to a conditioned reflex but, in agreement with the anxiety criteria, were displayed in the absence of the stressor and in a new context” (Bacque-Cazenave J, Cattaert D, Delbecque J P, Deurwaerdere P D, Fossat P). Exposure over 30 minutes had shown no sign of additional effects and regularity of these invertebrate returned within 90 minutes. This then proved that the adaptation was sustainable, which is another criterion of anxiety. A bioamine named 5HT was injected into some crayfish. They had then discovered that these selected crayfish were also very sensitive to the lightened
This study demonstrates that stressed crayfish express context-independent anxiety-like behavior that can be promoted by 5HT (electric fields) and abolished by an anxiolytic called benzodiazepine. The study was designed by exposing crayfish to an electric field for thirty minutes and then placing them into an aquatic dark/light shaped maze that was divided into two shaded arms and two lightened arms along with a middle starting zone. They had placed exposed and non-exposed crayfish in the maze to observe their behaviors. To distinguish these characteristics, the researchers observed and recorded the distance walked and the number/duration of the visits in each compartment in a 10-minute time span. In general, crayfish enjoy dark areas. This is why the duration and anticipation of entering different rooms was a major attribute to this study. The control group (unstressed crayfish) tended to explore the entire maze, whereas the exposed crayfish tended to favor the dark areas and often ceased movement before entering the lightened areas. Aversive responses of tail-flips were also recorded. Aside from the physical discoveries, blood glucose levels were also increased in the stressed crayfish. To argue the correlation between stress and anxiety, the study states: “These changes were not due to a conditioned reflex but, in agreement with the anxiety criteria, were displayed in the absence of the stressor and in a new context” (Bacque-Cazenave J, Cattaert D, Delbecque J P, Deurwaerdere P D, Fossat P). Exposure over 30 minutes had shown no sign of additional effects and regularity of these invertebrate returned within 90 minutes. This then proved that the adaptation was sustainable, which is another criterion of anxiety. A bioamine named 5HT was injected into some crayfish. They had then discovered that these selected crayfish were also very sensitive to the lightened