Mousekilling, intermale fighting, and conditioned emotional response in rats

✍ Scribed by Dr. Donald C. Bowers

• Book ID: 101349821
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1979
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 449 KB
• Volume: 5
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0096-140X
• DOI: 10.1002/1098-2337(1979)5:1<41::aid-ab2480050106>3.0.co;2-m

✦ Synopsis

Several possible relationships between two forms of aggression in rats were studied. First, mouse killing and spontaneous intermale fighting were found to be correlated.

Rats which attacked other rats were those most likely to kill mice. To determine whether Dgsressive and nonaggressive rats were also differentially responsive to other situations involving emotional arousal, but not aggression, mouse-killers and nonkillers were compmed in a conditioned emotional response (CER) situation. Mouse-killers showed greater suppression to the conditioned stimulus (CS) and to the situational cues of the apparatus. Therefore, a common arousal mechanism may underlie a number of diverse agonistic responses. Nevertheless, extensive mouse-killing experience did not increase the tendency of rats to fight with either adult males or juvenile males.

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