Hamster Cage Match

 

                                                  Cocaine: Increases Aggressive Behaviour 

 

 

 

 

 

Steroids:  Increase Aggressive Behaviour 

 

 Experiment 

To See If Cocaine And Steroids Cause Aggression

 

 

 

The research - in which hundreds of drugged-up hamsters were pitted against non-drugged rodents - aimed to investigate the links between steroids and aggression in teens.

In one of Melloni’s 2014 experiments, 105 hamsters were anesthetized so scientists could drill holes into their skulls to make way for a tube where steroids would be injected, according to the journal Behavioural Pharmacology.

"Since 1996, the experimenters have injected hundreds of animals with steroids, cocaine, and other substances, sometimes drilling into their skulls and injecting the drugs straight into their brains.

"After one hamster is drugged and becomes hyper-aggressive, experimenters put another one, who has not been injected with drugs, into the drugged hamster’s cage, exploiting the animals’ natural tendencies to be solitary and territorial in order to force them to be aggressive in these contrived scenarios.

For 14 days, the adorable adversaries were forced to face off as observers jotted down their attacks, bites and retreats. “Only winning hamsters were allowed to proceed ... producing an animal group with only experienced winners ... that had never lost a fight,” researchers said in a 2013 paper in the journal Aggressive Behavior.

The study intended to explore the “winner effect,” or how winning an aggressive encounter increases the likelihood of securing future bouts.

In other studies, the hamsters were jacked up with a steroid cocktail for 30 days and incited to battle their brethren so researchers could study “roid rage.” Each videotaped fight lasted 10 minutes in an attempt to mimic moderate steroid use in humans. A score was recorded after a hamster lunged at, confined or bit into a fellow rodent.

 

                                                                             Snapshot

 

 

 

 

 

 

"After one hamster is drugged and becomes hyper-aggressive, experimenters put another one, who has not been injected with drugs, into the drugged hamster’s cage, exploiting the animals’ natural tendencies to be solitary and territorial in order to force them to be aggressive in these contrived scenarios.