Untangling the neurobiology of escalated aggression in animals

Canines’ capacity for uncontrolled aggressiveness and violent-like behavior is a serious veterinary medicine concern and inflicts an awful burden on their owners. Unfortunately, the current intervention strategies and treatment options for curbing these problematic behavioral expressions are largely inadequate. Hence, a more fundamental knowledge about the neurobiological determinants of aggression is urgently needed. In particular, the interaction between environmental factors and the neurochemical substrates that causally underlies the shift towards escalated and maladaptive forms of aggressive behavior (e.g., violence) is in great need to be unraveled. Novel experimental laboratory models of violent-like aggression in rodents combined with newly emerging technologies for mapping and manipulating neuronal activity with anatomical, genetic and temporal precision are indispensable to obtain this goal. This contribution presents some of the most significant developments made during the last decade in this understudied preclinical animal research field that promise to significantly advance our understanding of the etiology, brain mechanisms and potential therapeutic interventions of excessive aggressive behaviors