The headline is broadly defensible, but the qualifications matter. Effect sizes vary by population, the strongest claims rest on shorter trials, and credible voices push back on how it's typically framed.
Now, the interesting thing is that if there is nothing for the animal to attack, it doesn't really do much when you're stimulating this region. It sort of wanders around the cage a little bit more, but it will not actually show overt attack unless you put something in front of it.
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Bookmarking — the dossier-vs-overview split is the right call. Most of the time I want overview; sometimes I want receipts.
Would love a "what would change this verdict" RSS feed. Sign me up if it exists.
I can say, at least with respect to the fear neurons that sit on top of the aggression neurons, we know that when those neurons are activated optogenetically, in the same way we would activate the aggression neurons, that there's clearly an arousal process that's occurring, you can see the pupils dilate in the animal. There is an increase in stress hormone release into the bloodstream, we've shown that heart rate goes up.
David Anderson at Caltech has been studying hypothalamic circuits and he and his former postto da Lynn discovered a small tiny tiny collection of neurons in the ventromedial hyp Thalamus that when stimulated would send these animals these mice you can find videos of this online into a rage