THEY BEHAVE LIKE RATS: How Stress Destroys Cooperation

Hans Selye / stress.org

Stress is a familiar human reaction to traumatic events and difficult periods in life. Research has shown that it alters the organism even at the genetic level. Stress also has psychological, social, and other consequences. It is destructive to all living things; it has a negative effect even on bacteria — they stop cooperating.

THE MAN WHO INVENTED «STRESS»

he Hungarian physiologist Hans Selye ⓘ is called the godfather of the science of stress. In the 1930s, he not only discovered this phenomenon but also gave it its name — stress. The scientist identified it while injecting laboratory rats with extracts from cow ovaries. As a result, the rats fell ill and suffered terribly. It was later established that the cows were not to blame. The rats were suffering from the pain caused by the laboratory needle, just as they would from extreme heat or cold. It is not known exactly what place Selye assigned the rat god, but with the term «stress» the scientist ultimately generalized all similar reactions of organisms to external circumstances. It was later found that to experience stress it is not necessary to undergo a traumatic event — merely thinking about it is enough.

STRESS DULLS THE SENSE OF RISK

Neuroscientists from Ohio University claim that stress negatively affects the genetics of the brain, more strongly even than trauma. This was shown by numerous experiments on the same rats who, as always, did nothing to provoke such treatment. To simulate an adverse childhood experience, the scientists separated newborn rat pups from their mothers. On the 15th day of separation, the pups were given a head injury with a hammer under anesthesia, and their reaction was compared with that of pups who had not been separated but were also injured. As a result, it turned out that the flexibility of the brain and its ability to adapt to change increased in them. As adults, rats that had experienced stress in childhood tended to take greater risks and exhibited other behavioral disorders. For example, they would remain for long periods in unprotected areas where they could easily fall prey to a predator.

SHORT-TERM STRESS IS GOOD, CHRONIC STRESS IS BAD

In principle, short-term stress is beneficial, as it builds stress resilience and helps adaptation to change. In the case of humans, it can unite people around a shared task of survival. Chronic stress, by contrast, is fraught with a wide range of negative consequences — not only for the health of the individual, but for society as a whole, as it can reduce levels of empathy, trust, and cooperation. And, apparently, humans are hardly unique in this respect. All living things respond to chronic stress in exactly the same way. For some reason, a group of researchers consisting of Spanish and Israeli scientists felt sorry for innocent laboratory rodents. Therefore, they conducted their experiment on several strains of genetically modified Escherichia coli bacteria.

«THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!»

Separately from one another, these strains could not survive, since each produced an amino acid necessary for joint survival. When cooperating and highly interdependent bacteria were exposed to chemical stress, they rushed to genetically change and reorganize themselves as quickly as possible in order to eliminate interdependence. For the simple reason that interdependent strains were less resistant to stress. Of course, bacteria are not rats. But in this case, when they sensed a threat to their own lives, they behaved in a very rat-like manner. Only the strain that managed to abandon the shared sinking ship first survived — that is, the one that more quickly acquired its own missing amino acid and no longer shared it with anyone.

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We are accustomed to thinking that by cooperating in the face of danger, biological species develop collective strategies that promote better survival. However, apparently, this is far from always the case. Cooperation is rather a human ideal and is not universal for all living things. Different bacteria, fish, mammals, and probably different human communities cooperate with one another in different ways.

Original research: