"No sex during training!" This may sound familiar to those of you in competitive sports and even more so for professional fighters. A recent study may help us to better establish the link between previous experiences, in this case, a woman’s touch, and how they can influence our potential for aggressive behavior.
Yuan et al employed an elegantly designed series of behavioral and genetic experiments using the common fruit fly. They identified a symmetrical set of male-specific neuronal circuits in each hemisphere of the fly brain, consisting of eight to ten neurons each, that are involved in the dampening of male aggressive behavior following physical contact with the female sex.
The researchers identified this circuitry through investigating whether previous social experiences influenced otherwise expected aggressive behavior when two males are in a sexually competitive environment - i.e. in the presence of a virgin female fly - which makes male flies particularly hostile. What they found was that while prior social interaction with other male flies dampened their baseline aggressive behavior, having previously interacted with a female effectively eradicated the male fly's aggressive behavior towards other males.
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Category(s):Aggression & Violence
Source material from Brain Blogger
