Zoochosis is a word used to explain the stereotypical behavior of animals in captivity, which tends to be ones that show a creature going crazy since it is not in its natural environment, as I discussed in this post. But here’s an interesting question. As a nomadic species for tens of thousands of years, and a rural one at that as little as a few decades ago that is but a blink in our evolutionary history, are we suited to the urban lifestyle that is not unlike a zoo for us? And can we answer that by seeing if we suffer similar symptoms to zoochosis we diagnose in animals, when we live in dense urban areas lacking much nature?

This Hidden Brain podcast provides some pretty interesting, if not conclusive, answers, even though the research wasn’t quite framed like that. I’m actually surprised they didn’t make the connection. It would have made the story and research a lot more relatable as we all know the concept of zoos and what it must be like to be an animal trapped in there for people to see, pet, and such, in a place very different than the ones they belong in, despite our best efforts to make the zoo areas similar to their natural environment.