Aggression, animal studies

Differentiating between types of aggression can be pertinent to medication trials. Chronic inhibition of monoamine oxidase or serotonin (5-hydroxtryptamine [5-HT]) uptake, with antidepressant treatment, reliably facilitates defensive aggression but not attack behavior in rodents (Miczek et ah, 1994). Thus, at least in animal studies, affective and predatory types of aggression differ in their psychopharmacologic response. 

All three major brain dopamine (DA) systems (nigros-triatal, mesocortical, and mesolimbic) have been implicated in aggression in animal studies (Miczek et ah, 1994). Brain DA systems appear to be involved in (1) the rewarding or reinforcing aspects of aggression, possibly via mesolimbic and mesocortical DA systems and (2) the initiation, execution, and termination of aggressive behavior patterns, possibly via the nigrostriatal and mesolimbic DA systems. 

If one—to begin at an arbitrary point—looks to the literature for evidence that the benzodiazepines can unleash aggression then one will find it. More than a dozen papers in the literature speak of irritability, defiance, hostility, aggression, rage or a progressive development of hates and dislikes in certain patients treated with benzodiazepine tranquilizers all those products which are widespread have been incriminated at one time or another. The phenomenon has been demonstrated in animal studies and it has even been proved possible to show in human volunteers that these drugs can release pent-up hostility, particularly in highly anxious or action-oriented individuals. 

Prozac-Induced Aggression in Eli Lilly s Earliest Animal Studies... 

Jasmine (Jasminum officinale) Many traditional medicinal uses over centuries including sedating and anesthetic effects. Animal studies demonstrate sedative and anti-aggression effect of ethanolic extract. No evidence of toxicity. 

Carbaryl is perhaps one of the best studied of the major lawn chemicals, and evidence of health-related risks related to its use date as early as the late 1960s, when studies of the chemical revealed both its toxicity and its potential impact on animal (and potentially human) reproduction. In 1969 the U.S. Department of Health Education and Welfare recommended restrictions on the use of the chemical, owing to mounting evidence that it may be tetragenic (causing birth defects). Later research in the 1980s pointed towards the possible implication of carbaryl in neurotoxicity, brain function, and aggressive behavior. ... 

The nature of allelochemicals the mechanisms and rates of their emission from the aggressive plant their fate in the soil and their uptake, translocation, and mode of action within the receptive plant are all processes that should be studied. These processes will be discussed in the plant-plant, plant-microorganism, plant-insect, and plant-animal sections of this book. In describing the allelopathic phenomenon, understanding how the aggressive plant (the donor) avoids autotoxicity is also essential. 

In essentially all species of animals, including humans, serotonin is important in aggression (Kravitz, 2000). Relationships between CSF concentrations of a serotonin metabolite, 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid (5-HIAA), and human aggression were described in As-berg et al. s landmark study (1976), which showed a bimodal distribution among depressed patients. A meta-analysis of 27 studies, involving 1202 psychiatric patients, showed an association between attempted suicide and low levels of CSF 5-HIAA (Lester, 1995). 

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