When people are hungry, they are more likely to be angry or aggressive. And now researchers have found the reason why: serotonin levels -- a hormone that helps regulate behavior -- fluctuate when people are stressed out or haven't eaten, according to a new study.
Rising and falling serotonin levels affect parts of the brain that allow people to control their anger, researchers from the University of Cambridge explained in the report published in the Sept. 15 issue of the journal Biological Psychiatry.
"We've known for decades that serotonin plays a key role in aggression, but it's only very recently that we've had the technology to look into the brain and examine just how serotonin helps us regulate our emotional impulses. By combining a long tradition in behavioral research with new technology, we were finally able to uncover a mechanism for how serotonin might influence aggression," the study's co-first author, Molly Crockett, who worked on the research as a Ph.D. student at Cambridge's Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute, said in a university news release.
Read more at: http://health.usnews.com/health-news/family-health/brain-and-behavior/articles/2011/09/16/research-reveals-why-hungry-people-get-cranky
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