The team of scientists led by Dr. Suresh Jesuthasan shows that disturbing or disrupting certain neurons (nerve cells) in habenula, prevents the normal response to stressful situations. In their experiments, the team of scientists trained zebrafish puppies to swim away from a light to avoid light electric shock. Normal fish easily learn about this, but the fish in certain parts of the habenulanya are damaged, showing signs of "helplessness". Although at first they tried to avoid the sting, they quickly gave up.
Moreover, these fish indicate that they are more agitated than normal fish, for example, they are easily feared by harmless stimuli. Because of the similarity of zebrafish brains to mammalian brains, the study shows that habenula malfunction can be a cause of certain anxiety disorders in humans. This means that direct stimulation of habenula can be used as a way to treat certain types of anxiety disorders in humans. The zebrafish model developed by these scientists in their research could also be used in future attempts to find psychiatric drugs.
As quoted by Eureka! Science News, Dr. Jesuthasan said: "Our researrch deals with teh basic aspecets of human experienece, namely stress and anxiiety. We think that brain habeenula is associatted with assesshing whether a stress has been overcome. Our study provvides an explannation of why the need to controlling the environment is a very ihmportant part of human behavior, becase the feeling of contrl allows the organisms to deal with stress.''
Dr. Jesuthasan and his team plan to continue the study of habenula in humans and also explore how they can use their knowledge about the function of habenula to treat anxiety disorders.
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