All she wants to do this winter is stuff her face, curl up in a ball and sleep. Forget exercise, eating or playing – nothing helps. Unfortunately, her roommates chatter and scurry around, keeping her awake and anxious.
Life is tough for the hamster with seasonal affective disorder.
Tinkerbell, a Syrian hamster, lives with Jennifer Lau, a visual communications major.
Lau, who suffers from SAD, might have more in common with her hamster than most people and their pets.
“I have noticed she (Tinkerbell) sleeps more in the winter,” said Lau. “She doesn’t wake up to run on the wheel.”
Perhaps, as an Ohio State study suggests, the same lack of sunlight that triggers winter depression in Lau also triggers it in Tinkerbell.
A 2004 study, conducted at OSU’s Neuroscience Studies Program, concluded that adult hamsters who were exposed to shorter periods of light, which are designed to mimic winter sunlight, display symptons of winter-related depression, similar to the human condition.
“The goal of the study was to examine the hypothesis that the length of the day (photoperiod) influences anxious-like and depressive-like behaviors,” said Randy Nelson, professor of social and behavioral sciences. “To date, there was not a good model of SAD.”
Leah Pyter, a graduate fellow in OSU’s neuroscience graduate studies program said adult hamsters exposed to shorter photoperiods were more depressed and more anxious.
Pyter’s study exposed hamsters to longer and shorter photoperiods from before birth through adolescence.
“I wanted to see if these day lengths would affect them just after they were born,” Pyter said.
There are a handful of ways to tell if hamsters have the winter blues.
In one of the tests, Pyter placed his hamsters in water. When the hamsters swam around looking for an escape, they found none. Pyter learned that the faster his little swimmers resigned themselves to their watery fate, the higher the indication of depression, Pyter said.
Pyter’s hamsters do not drown in the water if they stop swimming, she said. Instead, the depressed and soggy rodents simply float. The fact that hamsters do not sink made them the best candidate for this particular mission, she said.
She also learned that, like humans, hamsters can be enlivened by some of the same drugs doctors prescribe for depression.
“If you give them an anti-depressant, they continue to swim and look for an escape – they are persistent,” Pyter said.
The study indicates that humans born in the winter months are more likely to be depressed than those born in the summer, she said.
“This study does not look specifically at SAD, the study is focusing on gathering information on depression in general,” Pyter said. “We still have a long way to go to apply it to some treatment for SAD.”
Joanna Workman, a graduate fellow in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, takes Pyter’s research with the hamsters one step further. She is actually administering Prozac to determine if there is a difference in the performance of the drug between long and short days, which might be applicable to humans, she said.
Whether hamsters actually suffer from SAD, or the furry creatures are just faking it, scientists may never know. But thanks to modern medicine and concerned scientists, hamsters might finally have an affordable and convenient solution to depression.
