The Role of the VMHvl in Aggression and Reproductive Behaviors: Implications for Sexual Violence

Sex and aggression may have closer neurological ties than previously understood. Within the past forty-years, research on aggression and sex-behaviors has made great strides. More recently, experiments using techniques such as in vivo electrophysiology, optogenetics and advanced c-Fos immunohistochemistry have given researchers the opportunity to functionally manipulate and observe the underlying factors that control aggression and sex. The ventrolateral portion of the ventromedial hypothalamus (VMHvl) plays an important role in male sex behavior and in the investigation and subsequent attack-behaviors of male rodents. Lin et al (2011) discovered that there is an overlap in specific neurons of the VMHvl that is activated during both sex- and aggressive behaviors. The present research assesses the experiments that led up to this discovery, the factors that influence VMHvl activity (targets, experimental manipulations) and what these data might reveal about sexual violence in the human population. Together, these investigations suggest that dysfunctional inhibition of aggressive pathways, including the VMHvl, may lead to increased aggression and sexual violence against females. Further research into these inhibitory mechanisms is warranted