Asavari Gouda

Abstract:

This research investigated the impact of both an anti-inflammatory diet and the opportunity for voluntary exercise as possible mitigators of social isolation stress in a female mouse model. Initial results indicate that both of these strategies have therapeutic value in the presence of a chronic social stressor. Several measures of stress-induced psychological and physiological consequences were reduced in animals that were fed an anti-inflammatory diet and/or had the opportunity to exercise. Specifically, animals that were isolated spent more time displaying behaviors indicative of anxiety and depression, and exhibited elevated stress hormones. However, when animals were provided with an anti-inflammatory diet or an exercise wheel, those behavioral and physiological symptoms were not elevated, and were not significantly different from the behaviors of control animals that were not socially isolated.