CalTech Researchers Find a Toggle Switch for Mouse, and Perhaps Human, Aggression
Careful, He Could Be Aggressive Rama via Wikimedia When it comes to studying human consciousness, techniques can range from the objectively scientific to the pseudo-scientific to the very abstract. After all, the complex processes happening inside the human brain are very hard to observe and define. But researchers experimenting with the molecular biology of mice--whose cognitive function and nervous system physiology is quite similar to our own--have located the brain's trigger for aggression in mice, unlocking a series of seriously interesting insights into our own minds. At the center of these findings is a cluster of cells in the hypothalamus, specifically in the ventromedial hypothalamus (VMH), an area that previous studies have associated with sexual behaviors (for a longer, more detailed account, we highly recommend clicking through to SciAm's story on this). With the help of a "sexually experienced" male mouse that is also known for being quite territorial, a team...