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Trauma can have a wide range of mental and physical effects on humans. A variety of symptoms appear, from depression, to anxiety disorders, to increased anger, to worsening physical health. Recently, some American researchers published a study showing that trauma can shorten the lifespan of animals.
Researchers at the University of Arizona published a paper last week in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society in Biological Sciences showing that the lifespan of red squirrels varies depending on the degree of trauma. The red squirrel is an 11 inch long, 0.5 pound animal native to the Yukon region of Canada. It is also a species that encounters various threats during its life cycle. They must survive cold winters, food shortages, competition among their species for habitat, and threats from predators such as the Canada lynx.
Researchers followed the life of a young squirrel who faced adversity. Therefore, we used data from Kluan’s red squirrel research. This is data that has been tracked by attaching electronic tags to thousands of red squirrels in southwestern Yukon for more than 30 years.
The analysis showed that squirrels raised in a harsh environment during childhood lived relatively short lives. In general, red squirrels that survived beyond the first year of life lived about 3.5 years longer on average. However, if people experienced adversities such as lack of food in the first year of life, their life expectancy decreased by more than 14%.
The decline in lifespan could be alleviated by environmental changes. Squirrel lifespans change depending on when food becomes plentiful. White spruce seeds, the staple food of red squirrels, are produced in abundance every 3 to 7 years. Even squirrels that experienced food scarcity early in their lives did not show a decrease in lifespan if they were given abundant food in the second year of life.
Arizona researchers hope that the effects of trauma expressed in squirrels will lead to a better understanding of humans in the future. “Human beings have large individual differences in the degree to which they are able to overcome difficulties when faced with early development,” she continued. “Our research suggests that future quality of life may be a key factor in explaining why some individuals appear vulnerable to developing early life adversities.” “It shows the possibility,” she said.
※This article was written based on the original text from popsci.com, and a reporter from Popular Science Korea helped with the translation.
/ Written by journalist LAURA BAISAS and journalist Yu Ji-hoon
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