Moderate levels of hormones must promote squirrel learning

According to a researcher from the University of Chicago, experiments on hormonal effects are related to stress, learning in ground squirrels has a certain impact on understanding the effects of this hormone. human learning.

Jill Mateo, a professor of relative development studies, found that when doing normal exercises to survive, ground squirrels learn faster if they have moderate levels of cortisol, a kind of bump. subjects are produced in response to stress, compared to those with high or low cortisol levels .

In humans, the production of cortisol is also related to stress and affects learning, but that effect is not well understood, Mateo said. This ground squirrel study can provide a new direction. To survive, ground squirrels must adapt quickly and learn how to locate the danger in their environment, so they can return to their caves. New squirrels are born out of the cave at the time they stop feeding, about 4 weeks old.

A study at the University of Chicago found that small squirrels who learn to survive in habitats need moderate levels of stress hormones.The study aimed to understand the role of stress hormone in human learning during the early stages.(Photo: University of Chicago)

'Up to two hundred children can leave the cave at the same time, bringing a hearty meal to the predators,' Mateo said. She studied Belding ground squirrels in the western United States. In nature about 30% of squirrels cannot survive. The amount of cortisol is clearly linked to their survival, Mateo said in the article 'The relationship between cortisol and learning in an inverted U-shaped ground squirrel' published in the online journal Neurobiology. about learning and memory. ' Inverted-U ' is an image that data forms on a chart. Animals with low cortisol levels are on the left side of the inverted U, those with high cortisol levels are on the right, and those with moderate cortisol levels and high learning ability in the middle.

To test whether animals with low cortisol levels had difficulty learning or not, Mateo recreated the natural scenery with a maze and connected it to a box of nesting squirrels. She changed the amount of cortisol in the squirrel body and found that those with high or low cortisol levels needed 13 to 14 attempts before locating the labyrinth, while a controlled group of squirrels had moderate cortisol levels. only need 9 times. She tried the animals' reaction to danger by throwing a plastic plate through the maze and making a bird call to see how quickly the baby squirrel reacted. High and low cortisol levels reduce the ability of animals to learn how to react to danger.

For humans, studies have been done on cortisol and learning has not reached any conclusion. Unlike animals, scientists cannot regulate human cortisol levels to study its effects. However, scholars pay close attention to situations in which cortisol changes due to interventions and unusual events. For example, to help produce premature babies with healthy babies, doctors sometimes use synthetic glucocorticoids, which increase cortisol levels. Glucocorticoids make the fetal lung development easier. ' We know almost nothing about neurobiological effects on cognitive development in children, ' she explains. Animal studies have shown that this therapy can have a negative impact on brain development.

In addition, we have little understanding of the impact of low cortisol levels on human learning. Stress-tolerant women, such as those tested after directly witnessing the collapse of the international commercial building on November 9, have met with nervous distress after suffering and having The amount of cortisol decreased significantly two years later, as did their children.

Experiments on animals help us understand the potential effects of low cortisol levels on human learning, she concluded.