Essentials: The Biology of Aggression, Mating & Arousal | Dr. David Anderson

In this ⁠Huberman Lab Essentials⁠ episode, my guest is Dr. David Anderson, PhD, a professor of biology at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). We discuss the brain circuits that underlie how emotions emerge and shape behaviors, including the neural control of fear, aggression and pain. We also explore how hormones and neuromodulators influence these emotional states, and why understanding these hidden internal processes is essential for improving future mental health treatments.

Articles

• Functional identification of an aggression locus in the mouse hypothalamus (Nature)
• Hypothalamic control of male aggression-seeking behavior (Nature Neuroscience)
• Scalable control of mounting and attack by Esr1+ neurons in the ventromedial hypothalamus (Nature)
• Estrogen masculinizes neural pathways and sex-specific behaviors (Cell)
• Make war not love: The neural substrate underlying a state-dependent switch in female social behavior (Neuron)
• Distinct hypothalamic control of same- and opposite-sex mounting behaviour in mice (Nature)
• Tachykinin-expressing neurons control male-specific aggressive arousal in Drosophila (Cell)
• The Neuropeptide Tac2 Controls a Distributed Brain State Induced by Chronic Social Isolation Stress (Cell)

Books

• The Neuroscience of Emotion: A New Synthesis
• The Nature of the Beast: How Emotions Guide Us

People Mentioned

• Ralph Adolphs: professor of psychology, neuroscience, and biology at Caltech
• Dayu Lin: professor of psychiatry and neuroscience, NYU
• Annegret Falkner: professor, Princeton Neuroscience Institute
• Walter Rudolf Hess: physiologist, Nobel laureate
• Konrad Lorenz: zoologist, founder of modern ethology, Nobel laureate
• Scott Sternson: professor of neurosciences, UC San Diego.
• Nirao Shah: professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, Stanford University
• Moriel Zelikowsky: professor of neurobiology, University of Utah
• Mengyu Liu: postdoctoral fellow, Stanford University
• Charles Darwin: naturalist, known for theory of evolution
• Antonio Damasio: professor of psychology, philosophy, and neurology, USC Dornsife