Sex and Aggression Are Closely Linked

Brain neurons responsible for aggression appear to be located close to the neurons responsible for mating, high-tech experiments on male mice have shown. This finding suggests that the control centers for sex and aggression are neighbors in the brain and might help explain why sexual and aggressive behavior come to be fused in many individuals.
More information about the study and its implications can be found in the March 2 Psychiatric News here.

Insights into the close link between sex and aggression are also discussed in a new American Psychiatric Publishing book called The Inseparable Nature of Love and Aggression: Clinical and Theoretical Perspectives by psychoanalyst Otto Kernberg, M.D., in which he examines the psychoanalytic and neurobiological underpinnings of sexual love, from the organization of brain structures and neurotransmitters to the overall systems of erotic activation, attachment, and bonding. Information about the book can be found here.

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