OF MICE AND MEN

"New research on mice shows the brain processes aggressive behaviour as it does other rewards. .. The mouse brain is thought to be analogous to the human brain in this study, which could shed light on our fascination with brutal sports as well as our own penchant for the classic bar brawl. .... Scientists have known that mice and other animals are drawn to fights. Until now, they didn't know how the brain was involved. The new study, detailed online this week in the journal Psychopharmacology, reveals the same clusters of brain cells involved in other rewards are also behind the craving for violence. "Aggression occurs among virtually all vertebrates and is necessary to get and keep important resources such as mates, territory and food," said study team member Craig Kennedy, professor of special education and paediatrics at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee. "We have found that the reward pathway in the brain becomes engaged in response to an aggressive event and that dopamine is involved." (Yahoo News, 17 January)
Many American apologists for the violence of capitalism have claimed that it is innate in human beings but this is the first time we have heard it blamed on mice. There has been a lot of lynching historically in Tennessee but we have never heard of white mice hanging black mice. The so-called science of "special education and paediatrics" as practiced at Vanderbilt University is to say the least suspect. RD