Dayu Lin, PhD, studies the neurological causes of aggressive behavior.
PHOTO: Karsten Moran
This article is part of Finding Solutions When Depression Resists Medical Treatment, Psychiatry Year in Review, Psychiatry 2017 Year in Review.
Brain structures that control sexual and aggressive behaviors in mice are wired differently in females than in males, according to a study led by , assistant professor of psychiatry and of neuroscience and physiology at 麻豆国产AV Langone Health鈥檚 .
In an article published in September 2017 in Nature Neuroscience, the researchers reported that although aggression control resides in the same brain region in female and male mice, certain groups of neurons in that region are organized differently in females and males.
The region in question is the ventrolateral part of the ventromedial hypothalamus (VMHvl), an area on the underside of the hypothalamus that Dr. Lin鈥檚 team identified as a key aggression center in male mice during a landmark 2011 study.
The current study monitored the neural activity of both sexes during fights with mice that entered their boxed space and during mating. In male mice, a widely distributed group of cells fired during both activities; in females, cells in the center of the VMHvl fired during fights, whereas cells along the borders of the VMHvl fired during mating.
鈥淥ur study furthers the understanding of how aggression differs in male and female brains,鈥 Dr. Lin observes. 鈥淪uch research is a fundamental step toward the development of drugs that treat pathological aggression in humans.鈥
