Dr. Sapolsky Learned About The Effects Of Stress On The Baboon Case Study

1. Describe how Dr. Sapolsky has learned about the impact of stress on physiological systems. Dr. Sapolsky chose to study baboons in Kenya because they perfectly represent a lot of Westernized stress-related diseases. They are not stressed about survival; they are stressed by the interaction with the other baboon. In other words, their society is just like humans’. To measure the physiological system of stress on the baboon, Dr. Sapolsky chose to use a blow gun to shot the baboon with an anesthetic because it is almost silent. The baboon should not be aware of human activities around them so they don’t go into the flight and fight response when the researchers want to measure a baseline physiological condition. Once the baboon is anesthetized, he would draw some blood sample to measure the level of hormones central to stress response- adrenaline (epinephrine) and glucocorticoids.

2. How is stress different for humans than it is for animals in the wild? Adrenaline and glucocorticoids are critical to survival. Animals’ stress responses turn off after escaping from life-threatening situations. However, humans’ stress response come from a psychological state of fear or threat. We are often stressed out due to traffic, increasing taxes, instead of actual life-or-death situations. What’s worse, we are stressed constantly. Since we cannot

The food contains meat which were contaminated with tuberculosis. Nearly half of the males in the troop died. However, Dr. Sapolsky found out that baboons who died were aggressive and were not socially connected. For example, all the hostile alpha male was dead. The ones who survived were the kind males and females which changed the atmosphere of the tribe. When the new aggressive male baboons joined the tribe, it normally takes them six months to learn the new norm of the Keekorok