Living in a joint family or having more social interactions can help reduce your anxiety level, improve your memory and overcome the effect of chronic stress. In a recent study conducted at National Institute of Mental Health and Neurological Sciences (NIMHANS), Bengaluru, rats that were exposed to a social and interactive environment showed reduced anxiety-like behaviour.
Eight-week- old male rats were separated into four groups. The study group was given stress for 21 days, and for the next 10 days was let out into a wider cage with 10 to 12 other rats along with toys to play such as climbing ladders and rotating tunnels. Various behavioural tests were conducted after this period. Rats exposed to the better environment showed reduced memory problems associated with stress, compared with those that were not given the better cage. The study of their brain also revealed higher long-term potentiation (LTP) which is associated with learning and memory. Thus the scientists were able to show that exposure to such enriched environment can bring out positive effects on the brain and thereby improve cognitive functions. The results were published in Journal of Neuroscience Research.
“Physical contact, sensory stimulation and social interactions help to enhance the spatial recognition and learning process. Neurotic degeneration is also found to be less in the rats which were given the social cage. Now-a-days we have the trend of nuclear families and this could also be one of the reasons for the increased anxiety levels. With more communication and family connections, the chronic stress-induced problems could be reduced,” explains Dr. Venkanna Rao Bhagya, Department of Neurophysiology, NIMHANS, first author of the paper.
