社会工作:博士. 莎拉·基朔, 学生, make surprising discoveries about social interaction 和 health

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社会工作:博士. 莎拉·基朔, 学生, make surprising discoveries about social interaction 和 health

Dr. 莎拉·基朔, Associate Professor of 生物学

Between conducting the actual research 和 presenting at scientific conferences, involving our 学生 in this research project provides irreplaceable opportunities for experiential learning, while also contributing to a new scientific underst和ing of how social interaction contributes to an individual's overall health.
Dr. 莎拉·基朔

Whether or not you’ve ever contracted COVID-19, it’s likely the p和emic has had an impact on your health. 封锁的几个月, 压力和恐惧, 和 the disruption to our daily routines have affected us in ways that even the world’s top scientists have only just begun to explore.

One important part of that research: social isolation’s impact on fertility. That’s what a team of 利记sbo researchers are working to underst和. Using female mice 和 studying the physiological differences between mice kept in isolation 和 social housing, 研究团队, led by Associate Professor of 生物学莎拉·基朔, has made some surprising discoveries that may help lead to a new underst和ing of how social interaction impacts hormones, 生殖功能, 整体健康.

Q: How did this research project start?

莎拉·基朔: I started this research project in Spring 2021 with my Animal Physiology 学生, 从那时起, we have had two other semesters’ worth of 学生 working on the project (Fall 2021 和 Fall 2022). Along with those 学生 who have taken, 或正在修生物课324, we also have other 学生 working on this project as independent research (not part of the course). All in all, we have had over 40 学生 working on this research!

This research being conducted in collaboration with many 学生和 two of my faculty colleagues, Professor of 生物学 Terri Provost 和 Distinguished Professor of 生物学 Adam Pack. What makes this research most impressive is that the majority of 学生 working on the project are doing so as part of the BIO 324 Animal Physiology laboratory course. 换句话说, 学生 are conducting real research within one of the classes they take for their major (生物学专业 or 动物行为学专业).

Q: Your research is all about social isolation 和 its effect on physical 和 mental health. Why explore this topic, 和 what makes it especially relevant now?

SK: I have a background in studying how reduced social contact influences both the brain 和 behavior, 和 I started this particular research project with my Animal Physiology 学生 because I was thinking about the social distancing measures employed during the COVID-19 p和emic. Recall that early on in the p和emic, social distancing 和 stay-at-home work orders were central to the public health strategy used to reduce the transmission of COVID. These are effective measures for controlling the spread of COVID; however, social distancing also leads to increased experiences of isolation 和 loneliness, which can have negative effects on a person’s well-being. 尽管有这样的理解, less is known regarding how social isolation affects female animals, 尤其是女性健康. We are using mice to address this gap in knowledge with our research, 因为老鼠是群居动物, 和 because we can experimentally alter the social environment of a mouse by placing a mouse into a cage alone or in a social group with other mice.

Gillian Bradley looks through microscope

Q: What specific aspects of female health are you looking at?

SK: We have many projects being conducted within this framework. One of our major research goals is to investigate how social isolation affects female reproductive health, 包括生殖周期, 生殖激素, 卵巢的结构, 以及后代的产生. Another group of projects is investigating how social isolation affects energy balance 和 metabolism in females, 包括食物消耗量, 蔗糖的偏好, 代谢率, 血糖, 消化系统健康. 最后, I also have 学生 working on projects investigating how social isolation affects anxiety 和 memory.

Q: It's impressive that undergraduate 学生 are working on research at this level!

SK: 这是正确的. This is high-quality research that 学生 have presented at conferences, including an international science conference, 实验生物学, in April 2022 in Philadelphia 和 a regional conference, 发育生物学纽约, 2022年11月. Between conducting the actual research 和 presenting at scientific conferences, involving our 生物学和动物行为学生 in this social isolation research project provides our 学生 with irreplaceable opportunities for experiential learning, while also contributing to a new scientific underst和ing of how social interaction contributes to an individual's overall health. 非常令人兴奋!

奇怪的发现

学生s Nathan Rice, 24岁和 Lexi Lumley, 24岁 conduct research in labcoats 和 blue gloves.

Dr. 莎拉·基朔和 her 学生 began their experiments expecting to discover that social isolation, 就像其他情绪压力源一样, would have a negative impact on female fertility in mice. Their initial findings suggest the opposite. 研究生 Nathan Rice, 24岁 和 Lexi Lumley, 24岁 are busy exploring why that is—和 what it may tell us about female reproductive health in general.

Q: How did you discover that social isolation had this kind of fertility-enhancing impact on female mice?

内森大米: We examined the ovaries of two groups of mice — one group that was kept in isolation 和 one that was not — 和 looked at the cross section of the ovaries 和 determined follicle density. We didn’t see a change in the number of ovarian follicles, but a change in the cross-sectional diameter. This is likely because socially isolated mice had follicles of a larger diameter, which would indicate that they are more fertile. What we typically see with a stress response is a down regulation of hypothalamic gonadal hormones which would decrease fertility, 但这在这里没有发生.

莱克斯广告: 另外, 在我们的初步研究中, we found that the mice that were housed individually had larger litters than the mice that were housed in groups, suggesting that social isolation may instead be triggering a mechanism that would upregulate the production of luteinizing hormone 和 follicle-stimulating hormone, the hormones responsible for ovulation 和 egg quality.

Q: What makes this type of research important?

NR: This is an area of 生殖功能 that we don’t know a lot about, 所以去探索这个, especially in a female model organism, 真的很独特. Plus the fact that the observed findings are not what we expected. Our results could indicate that the current paradigm may not be telling the full story of how this emotional stressor is regulating hormonal function.

莎拉·基朔, Terri Provost 和 student researchers

Q: What has this project meant to you, personally?

NR: Through this research I’ve learned a lot about how science works—how long it takes, how often things don’t go how you wanted, 意外是如何发生的. Doing this work has helped me underst和 how science is always subject to change if 和 when evidence comes up that doesn’t support what the present idea is. 科学是可塑的. It's much less of a body of knowledge 和 much more of a tool we use to better underst和 the world. That’s the fun 和 invigorating part of the scientific process, 和 it’s been amazing to be a part of that.

LL: This research has helped inform my future career goals by allowing me to explore various stressors 和 other aspects of physiology outside of the neuroscience research I conduct. It has given me valuable experience writing research proposals, 设计实验组, 解释结果. 在十一月初, I presented a poster of our research on how social isolation impacts litter size in mice at 发育生物学纽约, 在伊萨卡学院举办. This work has also taught me to be flexible with my research, 因为不是所有的事情都是完美的, 和 adaptability is an important skill to have as a scientist.