Andrew Huberman· PhD
there's a certain preclinical model of depression that's pretty common in Laboratories that involves taking a rat or a mouse and putting it into a small container like it looks like a beaker or a jar sometimes it's a tray and it has water in it and you might be surprised to learn perhaps not that if you put a rat or a mouse into water it will swim okay so it's treading water in order to keep its head above water and not drown I realize for some of you this might a bit of an aversive topic to hear about animal research but this is one of the common preclinical models of depression which is put a r a mouse into water let it swim and see at what point it gives up because what happens is if you put a rat or Mouse into water it will attempt to save its own life by swimming but at some point it will just give up and it will just start sinking and then of course the researcher needs to rescue the r Mouse put it back into its home cage dry it off give it some food Etc this preclinical model is called the model of learn helplessness