Implications of night-party environment on emotional, physiological, and anatomical features in mammals: A simulation based study on Swiss mice
Introduction
It is known that bars and nightclubs pose risk to the behavior of young adults, mainly because these environments apply an aggressive marketing for both tobacco and alcohol consumption [21], fact that obviously reinforces the effects of their use and increases addiction risks [4] or, yet, features physical and social environments prone to develop risky behaviors concerning the use of other drugs, as well as to risky sexual practices[23]. Previous research have shown that the increased popularity of night-parties in recent years [31] has attracted a large number of participants who tend to face high risk of using drugs during such events [30], [25], [23]. Drugs such as ecstasy and ketamine prevail among night-party goers in different countries [26], [24], [3], [5].
Although the cultural, economic and social benefits of night-parties are undeniable in many countries [13], they also bring practical impairments and ethical obstacles to experimental studies focused on assessing the effects of biological events on goers. Thus, in experimental terms, biological damages in animal models exposed to sensory superstimulus conditions have been reported in studies focused on providing multiple environmental stimuli to animals. Christakis et al. [6] found that CD-1 mice exposed to excessive television stimuli presented increased risk of developing anxiety, poor short-term memory and impaired learning.
According to a recent report by the National Toxicology Program (NTP, 2018), male rats exposed to high radiation levels, similar to those used in 2G and 3G android mobile phones, developed cancerous heart tumors. Kim et al. [16] investigated the effects of the exposure to radio frequency identification (RFID), which is a wireless technology with the potential to replace barcodes, on blood-stream cells of Sprague–Dawley male rats. These authors observed that blood-stream cell counts were significantly affected by the exposure to 915 MHz RFID at whole‐body specific absorption rate of 2 W/kg for 2 weeks. Balci et al. [2] exposed mice to computer screen radiation for 8 h/day, every day, for three weeks, and observed that computer-screen radiation led to oxidative stress in corneal and lens tissues.
In addition to the aforementioned studies, there are publications in the literature that adress trials with human beings, and they have reported the development of psychological and neurological impairments in children excessively exposed to sensory stimuli. Zack & Calvert (2010) examined the association between exposure to television radiation in childhood and the executive function (EF) at the age of 4, which is crucial to both cognitive and social functioning. Based on their results, children who watched shows based on adult-directed content at age of 1 had weaker EF at the age of 4. Nathanson et al. [22] interviewed 107 parents of preschoolers to gather information about children’s TV watching and observed that the exposure to excessive TV watching leads to higher order cognitive processes and that such exposure in childhood can be specially harming during the cognitive and social function years. Lillard & Peterson (2011) assessed the immediate effects of the exposure to fast-paced cartoons on the EF performance of children at the age group 4 years, or older. They compared this group to children who either watched educational cartoons on the American public television network (PBS) or who used to draw with markers and crayons, and found that children who watched fast-paced cartoons had worse performance in EF tasks right after watching them. Lillard et al. [18] observed that the EF performance of children between 4 and 6 years old was impaired after they watched 2 different fast and fantastical cartoons in comparison to the performance of children who watched slow and realistic shows or who simply spent their time playing.
The aforementioned question motivated the exposure of a murine model to a simulated night-party environment in order to assess its effects on predictive memory deficit and anxiety behaviors. Assumingly, the environment in these parties provide multiple sensory stimuli; moreover, when they are excessively/consecutively experienced, they end up inducing behavioral changes in the ones exposed to them. Results did not clarify whether the herein developed experimental paradigm can be extrapolated to human populations; however, the present study will certainly subsidy further experimental research on the neurological impacts of night-party environements on goers’ mental health.
Section snippets
Animal model and experimental design
In total, 52 male Swiss mice were used in the experiment, they were provided by the animal facility of the Biological Research Laboratory of Goiano Federal Institute (IF Goiano, Urutaí, Goiás State, Brazil). Shortly after weaning (21 days), the animals were kept in conventional laboratory conditions, at temperature 23 °C, relative humidity ±45%, and 12:12 h photoperiod up to the age of 35–40 days – they were fed on feed and water ad libitum. Male mice were chosen to avoid the different phases
Results and discussion
The present investigation assessed whether the environmental condition animals were exposed to would affect their locomotor activity, since locomotor changes could have negative influence in their performance in predictive memory-deficit tests (Star et al., 2017). There were not differences in the number of crossings through virtual quadrants, and such outcome suggests absence of Hypo-or Hyperactivity induction (Fig. 2a). Mice from all groups recorded normal locomotion quality, which was
Conclusion
Based on the present results, the initial hypothesis was partially confirmed; however, the simulated night-party conditions did not cause locomotor changes corresponding to hypo/hyperactivity or anxiety-like behavior. On the other hand, audiovisual superestimulus actions could cause object recognition and aversive memory deficit, but such outcome did not seem to have been caused by mechanisms that lead to stress or to histopathological changes in the suprarenal glands. The present data broadens
Conflict of interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Ethical approval
All procedures were approved by The Ethics Committee on Animal Use of Instituto Federal Goiano (GO, Brazil). Meticulous efforts were made to assure that the animals suffered the least possible and to reduce external sources of stress, pain and discomfort. The current study did not exceed the number of animals necessary to produce trustworthy scientific data. This article does not comprise any study with human participants performed by any of the
Acknowledgment
The authors are grateful to the Brazilian National Research Council (CNPq) (Brazilian research agency) and to Instituto Federal Goiano for the financial support (Proc. No 23219.000554/2019-75). Moreover, they would like to thank Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES, Brazil) and Fundação de Amaparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Goiás (FAPEG, Brazil) for granting the scholarship to the student who developed the study. Malafaia G. was granted with the reserach productive
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