The pursuit of science can often mean being mean to mice. Now scientists from Norway have taken things a step further, by being mean to mice by making them mean. How so? Well, according to the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, by injecting the laboratory rodents with human antibodies extracted from the […]
The pursuit of science can often mean being mean to mice. Now scientists from Norway have taken things a step further, by being mean to mice by making them mean.
How so? Well, according to the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, by injecting the laboratory rodents with human antibodies extracted from the blood of violent offenders imprisoned for murder or for extreme physical or sexual assault.
The chemical reportedly cause the mice to inherit the violent impulses of the human donors, causing them to be quicker to start fights when provoked and shortening the deliberation time before attacking intruders.
Scientists says the antibody interferes with the production of the stress hormone, cortisol. The antibody taken from violent criminals binds to hormones in a reliably different than those taken from our more peace-like brethren, suggesting it may be a predisposing factor in violent behaviour.
