Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay
Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay

Is anxiety contagious?

Embargoed until: Publicly released:
Peer-reviewed: This work was reviewed and scrutinised by relevant independent experts.

Experimental study: At least one thing in the experiment was changed to see if it had an impact on the subjects (often people or animals) – eg: changing the amount of time mice spend on an exercise wheel to find out what impact it has on weight loss.

Observational study: A study in which the subject is observed to see if there is a relationship between two or more things (eg: the consumption of diet drinks and obesity). Observational studies cannot prove that one thing causes another, only that they are linked.

Animals: This is a study based on research on whole animals.

Experiencing severe stress in early life can lead to mental health issues such as anxiety, but international researchers have found that witnessing another individual experiencing stress can also have impacts. The team used mice to investigate this idea, by removing some mouse pups from their mums and measuring the response later in life from the littermates who witnessed this occurring. The team found changes in the brain regions responsible for physical and social pain, as well as the transfer of anxiety-like behaviour. While this study is in mice and is not guaranteed to translate to humans, the researchers say results suggest that witnessing someone else, such as a friend or sibling, experiencing a stressful situation in youth may affect us later in life too, and this research looking at brain responses may help inform future treatments.

Journal/conference: JNeurosci

Research: Paper

Organisation/s: Guangzhou University, China

Funder: The study was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32170950, 31970915, 32371065), the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (2023A1515010899, 2021A1515010804).

Media release

From: Society for Neuroscience

Anxiety may be contagious

Mouse study reveals neural mechanisms underlying the transmission of adolescent anxiety to others following maternal separation in infancy.

Severe instances of stress experienced early in life (ELS) are a risk factor for developing neuropsychiatric diseases, such as anxiety, later in life. Research has focused on the molecular and circuit-based mechanisms underlying this phenomenon, but little is known about how even just witnessing another individual experiencing ELS, which can occur in homes with siblings or during friendships in youth, impacts individuals at a later timepoint. 

Maternal separation (MS) during infancy is frequently used as a research model for ELS and its aftermath, but the effects of witnessing another experience MS are unexplored. Jiang and colleagues used mice to investigate whether witnessing littermates experience MS alters synaptic strength and behavior at a later timepoint (adolescence). They found significant changes in synaptic strength on a neuron population in the anterior cingulate cortex, which encodes physical and social pain, as well as a transfer of anxiety-like behavior. These data suggest that emotional contagion can impact the brain in a long-lasting manner and identify circuitry that may be targeted as a novel treatment strategy for transmitted anxiety. 

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