Abstract
ZISKIND1 has reported paranoid psychoses, mental abnormalities, anxiety states and depressions in humans due to prolonged solitary confinement or isolation stress. Zuckerman et al.1 have similarly demonstrated the stressful effects of acute, short-term periods (3 h) of total and partial perceptual isolation in man. Little has been done to define the endocrinological consequences of isolation stress. Few investigators have recognized the possibilities of the use of isolation to produce abnormalities of behaviour or emotion in laboratory animals. Scott and Marston2 and Keller and Umbreit3 have found that solitary confinement produced a rapid, violent, head-shaking response in mice when an area at the back of the head was touched lightly with apointed object. Other investigators4,5 have also reported aggressive behaviour and ferocity in isolated mice. Barnes6 has used the inhibition of head-twitching and convulsive responses caused by isolation to evaluate the tranquillizing, sedative and anti-epileptic effects of various drugs.
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SACKLER, A., WELTMAN, A. Effects of Isolation Stress on Peripheral Leucocytes of Female Albino Mice. Nature 214, 1142–1143 (1967). https://doi.org/10.1038/2141142a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/2141142a0
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