Stimulating certain areas of the animals’ brains can trigger predatory behaviours including biting and grabbing.
When certain parts of the rodents’ brains were stimulated with light, mice displayed a complex array of hunting activities.
Researchers wanted to know whether the amygdala itself controls hunting behaviours, and a study published on 12 January in Cell2 suggests that it does.
To activate the central amygdala in mice, Ivan de Araujo, a neurobiologist at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, and his colleagues used a technique called optogenetics.
The behaviour didn’t occur when the researchers stimulated other parts of the brain.
Although the light-stimulated mice hunted more than the ones left alone, both groups ate the same amount.
The laser-activated mice could still tell the difference between friend and food: “When they were with another mouse, they might have become more curious, but we didn’t observe any attacks,” says de Araujo.
Scientists once thought that the central amygdala’s role in behaviour was limited to fear.
Because the central amygdala is involved in so many different behaviours, she says, future research needs to tease out the precise neuronal circuits involved in hunting.
If that’s the case, de Araujo and his colleagues may have discovered the door for hunting behaviours.
Originally published at Cogly.
