Love, War, and Brain Control

Aggressive and mating behaviors, crucial for survival, are inherently programmed in the brain and are orchestrated by genetically defined cell types within subcortical circuits. Despite the hard-wired nature, females exhibit a remarkable ability to flexibly adjust these behaviors to according to their reproductive states. The neural mechanisms governing the stable control and adaptive regulation of these behaviors remained unclear. Moreover, given the inherently complex and dynamic nature social interactions, the dynamics of the underlying motivational states and their encoding in the female brain was largely unknown.