A team of German researchers studying the causes of depression have developed a foolproof way to totally bum out fruit flies. When placed on an uncomfortably hot surface, the flies would quicken their pace to avoid it and try to escape to a more temperate area, which is a pretty sensible response to the situation and sounds about exactly like what happens every time I go to the beach.
Once the flies learned that there was no escape from the heat, though, their response to the experiment changed. The flies seemingly repressed their natural instincts, and rather than speeding up, they actually stepped more slowly along the hot surface, even taking longer and more frequent breaks from walking at all. It’s a principle known as learned helplessness, and the fact that researchers can seemingly demonstrate the concept in flies suggests that the core problems of depression may have their roots deep in the most basic aspects of biology.
via Geekosystem
