Scientists' Mouse Fight Club

An anonymous reader writes "To study how aggression, fighting, and winning change the brain, scientists set up a tournament of mice fights. They watched as the lab rodents took a break from their hum-drum existence and battled it out (however, the researchers broke the first rule of Fight Club by publishing a paper about their findings [abstract]). They found clear evidence of the 'winner effect,' in which a mouse that has just won a fight maintains elevated levels of testosterone and aggression, and is therefore more likely to win the next bout. Interestingly, the winner effect was strongest in mice that were fighting in their own cages — i.e., those that had home-field advantage."

Comments

Re:Imagine that - defending the home is a motivato

[Anonymous Coward]

Since they made a "comparison" between fighting at home and away from home you can read the paper and see the difference. Sciencey stuff is amazing like that.

Re:Imagine that - defending the home is a motivato

[zero_out]

The article states the the effect is MOST pronounced when a mouse is defending its home territory. This means that they also had to study the effect when that motivation was absent. If you read the full text paper, and it will tell you more. It's behind a sign in page.

Re:!Correlation = Causation

[Kell Bengal]

No - they were looking at deltas in the testosterone measurement, not absolute values.