Men whose brains generate and store more dopamine are less prone to aggression, according to a group of German researchers: The Impact of Dopamine on Aggression: An [18F]-FDOPA PET Study To quantify how aggressive the participants were, the researchers got them to play a game, for cash, in which a selfish 'opponent' sometimes stole their money. The player could choose to take revenge by pressing a button that, they thought, would punish the opponent (who didn't really exist - it was all the computer.) Meanwhile, they had to repeatedly press a different button to earn cash. Dopamine metabolism was measured with positron emission tomography (PET) using the radioactive [18F]-FDOPA tracer. When they looked at the brain-behaviour correlations, the results were pretty impressive:
Dopamine (FDOPA concentration) was inversely correlated with aggressiveness across various brain regions (thalamus, midbrain and caudate). More dopamine, less revenge. Now when I picked this paper up, I ...
