Anxiety Related Behaviour in Mice

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

In one set of experiments the team briefly increased the heart rate of mice by about a third from a mouse's baseline of 660 beats per minute up to 900 beats per minute. This increase on its own didn't produce any anxiety related behaviour. If the animals were in a non-threatening environment there was no effect of pacing the heart at higher rates. But if the animal was in an anxiety provoking environment then pacing the heart substantially increased the anxiety related behaviours of the animal. And what's more Karl says that this switch in behaviour happened immediately in mice when the heart rates were increased. To get an idea of what might be underlying this shift in behaviour they looked in the mouse's brains to see what

00:47 How a racing heart could trigger anxiety

Anxiety can make the heart beat faster, but could the reverse be true as well? That question has been much debated, but hard to test. Now, a team has shown that artificially increasing a mouse’s heart rate can induce anxiety-like behaviours, and identified an area in the brain that appears to be a key mediator of this response. They hope that this knowledge could help to improve therapies for treating anxiety-related conditions in the future.

Research article: Hsueh et al.

News & Views: How an anxious heart talks to the brain

08:32 Research Highlights

The chance discovery of the smallest rock seen so far in the Solar System, and the first brain recording from a freely swimming octopus.

Research Highlight: Asteroid photobombs JWST practice shots

Research Highlight: How to measure the brain of an octopus

10:57 How NASA’s DART mission beat expectiations

In September 2022, NASA’s DART spacecraft smashed into a space rock known as Dimorphos, which orbits a near-Earth asteroid. The aim of the mission was to test whether asteroids could be redirected as a method to protect Earth against future impacts. This week, multiple papers have been published describing what researchers have learnt about the impact and its aftermath. Reporter Alex Witze joined us to round up the findings.

News: Asteroid lost 1 million kilograms after collision with DART spacecraft

Research article: Thomas et al.

Research article: Daly et al.

Research article: Li et al.

Research article: Cheng et al.

Research article: Graykowski et al.

Subscribe to Nature Briefing, an unmissable daily round-up of science news, opinion and analysis free in your inbox every weekday.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.