Solitary confinement makes prisoners behave badly and screws up their brains
THEY LIVE in tiny, austere cages not much larger than their bodies, isolated from their peers. These pitiful lab rats once served merely as control groups for researchers, compared with rodents in more comfortable abodes. But then scientists realized these unfortunate rats could be the perfect model for a bigger, uglier experiment, since their living conditions mimic those of human prisoners in solitary confinement.
Within just a few days, rats isolated in small cages exhibit stress-related symptoms, aggressive behavior and higher incidences of disease, and they begin to lose the ability to recognize other animals. Even their brain cells, synapses, blood flow and nervous systems start to be impaired. Scientists believe this happens to humans in isolation as well. “Our brains cannot function without social interactions. We require them as much as air and water,” says Michael Zigmond, a neurologist at the University of Pittsburgh. He and other scientists have drawn attention in recent years to the effects of solitary confinement on people’s brains, minds and behavior.
Last year, he and his colleagues studied how mice and rats respond to isolated and enriched environments. For the latter, they grouped 14 mice or six rats in a cage with toys, mazes, tunnels and places to climb, in order to simulate what a natural rodent society might be like. They found the isolated rodents tended to have brains with smaller neurons, with fewer branches in regions like the hippocampus and cerebral cortex, which are involved in learning, memory, perception and executive brain functions. The amygdala, which influences feelings of fear and panic, was an exception, showing more activity.
This story is from the April 28 2017 edition of Newsweek.
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This story is from the April 28 2017 edition of Newsweek.
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