The findings of a study by a research team at the University of Lethbridge suggest female rats deal with less stress and are more curious about their surroundings when they have a more social lifestyle.
Jamshid Faraji and his team were part a study that looked at four groups of rats based on gender and the living arrangements of groups of two to three rats or a dozen (which the researchers referred to as social housing environment).
The findings suggest the group of female rats living in the social housing environment had reduced anxiety response and more exploratory behaviour.
Faraji said this finding may have implications for social isolation among humans as more people use modern technology to communicate with one another.
“We really need to establish face-to-face communication. In the new era… we think that we’re still in real communication, which is not absolutely right.”
Faraji teamed up with researchers from Iran’s Golestan University of Medical Sciences and Avicenna Institute of Neuroscience to complete the study.
“We found that after three months, males and females raised in social conditions were showing unique changes in their brain structure and function, but females were showing more changes in their behaviour and brain structure compared to social males,” he said.
On top of that, Faraji said the female rats who lived in social settings passed on their social behaviour to their female children, even if the children didn’t live in the same environment.
Faraji noted rats and humans share very similar brain structure and that people should consider a more social lifestyle as it could be better for their mental health.
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