动物实验 z-bo 2020-09-14 413

　　A group of researchers from the Nagoya University School of Medicine in Japan discovered what they described as the main driving force of the psychosocial stress response in mice. In their paper published in the journal Science, the team described their experiments on laboratory mice and what they learned from them.

　　Human stress is a mental and emotional type of tension or stress, usually caused by an unfavorable or harsh environment. It is also often accompanied by physical reactions such as sweating, increased heart rate or increased blood pressure. Previous research has shown that stress is a legacy of ancient times, when human ancestors had a strong fight or flight response to threats.

　　In modern times, such a response is rarely needed, but it can be triggered by less threatening events, such as being reprimanded by the boss. Previous studies have also shown that people who experience stress often have negative health experiences, such as high blood pressure. Because of this, scientists have been studying stress to learn more about the factors behind stress and determine whether there are ways to reduce the impact of stress on the body. In this new study, the researchers tried to find the control mechanism of stress in laboratory mice.

　　This work involves injecting tracers into the brains of laboratory mice, and then letting them experience a stressful event - a daunting laboratory mouse bullies it. These tracers allow researchers to see which parts of the brain are activated when the mice experience stress. Researchers report that under stress, two relatively unexplored areas of the rat's brain become active. Further observation of these two brain regions showed that they were involved in the process of sending signals to the hypothalamus-but only when the rats were stressed. Researchers have found that disabling these signals can reduce stress symptoms in laboratory mice, but it will not interfere with other body functions. They believe that these two brain regions constitute the main driving force of the psychosocial stress response of experimental mice.