Use in Science
The reliability which hamsters and other animals use running wheels has made wheel-running one of the most widely used indicators of activity and wake-time in research on circadian rhythms and other aspects of chronobiology.
While relatively little is known about the neurotransmitter systems involved in wheel running behavior, recent evidence suggests that changes in serotonergic tone alter running wheel activity. For example, one study in mice has shown that several antidepressant medications (all of which directly or indirectly enhance serotonergic tone) suppress running wheel activity without suppressing general locomotion.
Read more about this topic: Hamster Wheel
Famous quotes containing the word science:
“Already nature is serving all those uses which science slowly derives on a much higher and grander scale to him that will be served by her. When the sunshine falls on the path of the poet, he enjoys all those pure benefits and pleasures which the arts slowly and partially realize from age to age. The winds which fan his cheek waft him the sum of that profit and happiness which their lagging inventions supply.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)