Posted on 01/16/2008 4:51:49 AM PST by CarrotAndStick
NEW YORK: It has been well documented that, across human cultures and in most mammals, males are more aggressive than females. It's simple to blame male hormones but a new study has found the role of brain in the behaviour.
A team of researchers at the Vanderbilt University in the United States has carried out the study and found it is the human brain which processes aggression as a reward much like sex, food and drugs.
"We have found that the 'reward pathway' in the brain becomes engaged in response to an aggressive event and that dopamine is involved.
"It's well known that dopamine is produced in response to rewarding stimuli such as food, sex and drugs of abuse. What we have now found is that it also serves as positive reinforcement for aggression," the 'ScienceDaily' quoted lead researcher Maria Couppis as saying.
The researchers came to the conclusion after analysing the involvement of brain in aggression on rodents.
For the experiments, a pair of mice -- one male, one female -- was kept in one cage and five "intruder" mice were kept in a separate cage. The female mouse was temporarily removed, and an intruder mouse was introduced in its place, triggering an aggressive response by the "home" male mouse.
Aggressive behaviour included tail rattle, an aggressive sideways stance, boxing and biting.
Great picture.
Given the choice, I’ll take sex every time.
Wanda says: Why chose when you can have both.
lol!!!
The underlying form of islam.
Don’t look at that ankle!
Murder your daughter. no problem.
No wonder why our government, insurance companies, the medical industry, banks, cable TV, hedge fund traders, OPEC, etc. have been so aggressive, that is hell bent on screwing us out of our hard-earned money.
REMO's: Repeated Mental Orgasms
Which then triggers a release of rope-a-dope-amine.
No problem, you can have the banana.
Interesting article. Consider also that, historically, the most successfully aggressive males have also been the most successful in having sex and reproducing - whether directly by conquest or by virtue of position in society which results from fighting prowess. And, now, aggression is seen channeled into other areas (think of the war analogies on Wall Street and in politics) which provide other forms of power - money or office - which also provides increased access to sex. Who knew? /s
Oh, and I thought that was Hillary dressed for her date with Janet Reno.
Yeah, sex is better for the immediate sense of pleasure, but it is soon forgotten—sorta like women with birth pain—and fades into a general memory.
But I bet we can remember and savor every single time of the joy we felt when we stepped on the —— of some asshole that needed it.
Well, I have two thoughts.
Your point about percussive motivation is well-taken. I still have memories of fights won longago.
But, if the memory of sex is short-term, then it behooves us to replenish that memory on a contiuous basis, doesn’t it? I mean, why let the memory fade?
I suspect you are mixing aggression with dominance.
Aggression maybe used to assert dominance.One does equal the other.
Prisons are full of highly aggressive types, most are not socially dominant.
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