Animal Depression Quotes

“The Tail Suspension Test, or “Tail Test” for short, is one such test. Mice are suspended upside down by their tails, usually for six minutes. The amount of time the mouse struggles and the force and direction with which it pulls are measured. The Tail Test is based on the observation that when placed in an inescapable stressful situation, rodents will eventually develop an immobile posture after initial escape-oriented movements. The Tail Test demonstrates the mood system’s ability to demobilize effort, sometimes quite rapidly. The mouse has the goal of escaping from an uncomfortable (hemodynamic stress of blood rushing to the head) and highly unfamiliar situation of being hung by the tail. Yet it learns over time that its movements cannot effect escape. Its final immobile posture is the product of a mood system that is rapidly reducing effort in the context of an impossible goal.”
― Jonathan Rottenberg, The Depths: The Evolutionary Origins of the Depression Epidemic