In contradistinction to the meth-fueled madness of the post immediately below.
A study by freshwater crustacean boffins in Florida has revealed that feeding antidepressants to crayfish can make them more outgoing and adventurous — which is more or less a definition of how antidepressants are supposed to work. On humans, at least.
The experiment set out to investigate how exposure to antidepressants might affect crayfish behaviour in the wild, since human pharmaceutical pollutants are an increasing factor in freshwater environments.
To do this, they created “20 oval-shaped recirculating artificial streams,” each of which they filled with 60 litres of chemical-free groundwater. In each artificial stream, they built a shelter at one end for the crayfish to start in, which led to two separate paths: one flavoured with fish gelatin to signal a source of food; the other populated by another crayfish to potentially provoke an aggressive response.
Once they had been exposed to small amounts of a common antidepressant called citalopram, the excitingly named spiny-cheek crayfish used in the experiments (aka Faxonius limosus) emerged from shelters in half the time they did in control groups and spent twice as much time out in the open foraging for food....
....MUCH MORE
Well sure. If the models of crawdad dysthymia are correct, that anxiety kindles for major depression and/or that anxiety and depression can exist at the same time as a cothymia, then it follows that reducing crayfish stress levels would result in lower levels of crustacean agoraphobia and a more cheerful, outgoing affect.
There is much we can learn from crawdaddies e.g.:
Crayfish brain may offer rare insight into human decision making
Crayfish make surprisingly complex, cost-benefit calculations, finds a University of Maryland study, opening the door to a new line of research that may help unravel the cellular brain activity involved in human decisions....
