“The first thing we thought was, maybe this was just generalized aggression. Or maybe we just made the mice very hungry.”
When mice in empty cages had their amygdalas activated, they stopped whatever they were doing, positioned their front legs as if they were holding food and moved their mouths as if they were chewing.
“When they were with another mouse, they might have become more curious, but we didn’t observe any attacks,” says de Araujo. This left him fairly certain that the experiments were triggering predation, not hunger or aggression.
“When the laser was on, the mice hunted just about everything placed in their paths, from edible treats such as crickets to non-food items like bottle caps. The researchers observed the same activity when they triggered the amygdala with chemogenetics, a similar technique that stimulates neurons with molecules rather than light. The hunting and feeding behaviours even happened when there was nothing to hunt. ”
“The first thing we thought was, maybe this was just generalized aggression. Or maybe we just made the mice very hungry.” When mice in empty cages had their amygdalas activated, they stopped whatever they were doing, positioned their front legs as if they were holding food and moved their mouths as if they were chewing. “When they were with another mouse, they might have become more curious, but we didn’t observe any attacks,” says de Araujo. This left him fairly certain that the experiments were triggering predation, not hunger or aggression.
“When the laser was on, the mice hunted just about everything placed in their paths, from edible treats such as crickets to non-food items like bottle caps. The researchers observed the same activity when they triggered the amygdala with chemogenetics, a similar technique that stimulates neurons with molecules rather than light. The hunting and feeding behaviours even happened when there was nothing to hunt. ”