Have you ever wondered whether - beyond making him a giant green monster of immense strength who smashes things - the gamma particles that Bruce Banner was injected with also made him really, really angry?
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Now, when I say the gamma particles made the Hulk angry, I don’t mean that he was angry because he was injected by weird, radioactive photons but that the gamma rays acted as a mutagen that altered his genetic code literally making him more susceptible to becoming angry.
Hi, I’m Selima Kabir and I’m going to discuss with you the idea of the ‘Aggression Gene’ or ‘Warrior Gene’.
Before we begin: Let’s talk about genes in general. But before even that - let’s just clarify our idea of what DNA is.
DNA - or Deoxyribonucleic Acid - is the carrier of hereditary information for all human beings and, in fact, all living organisms. It is the thing that makes us … us. That was poorly explained. It’s basically this special code written in sciency elements that determine all our characteristics.
Genes are just stretches of DNA that contain the code mostly for the production of a protein molecule (or parts of a molecule). Genes come in multiple forms called alleles. Since genes are made up of DNA, we can assume that genes are the ones that code for our physical and personality traits.
Now this is where it gets a little complicated. Theoretically, it’s easy to imagine the gene doing two separate things. On one hand, the gene codes for a particular protein that is important for us to function - for example a hormone or an enzyme, etc. And when we’re looking at genes and DNA functions at a cellular level - it’s not very hard to imagine the cell churning out proteins. On the other hand, when we look at an organism - and a complex one especially - as a whole, we can understand that genes code for specific traits. One gene will code for my dark brown hair and other will code for my brown eyes and so on forth. But even more than that, we can assume that genes will code for our bookishness or for my non-left-handedness, etc.
However, it gets a little harder to understand how these two come together. I mean, I suppose I can accept that my hair is brown because my gene produced a special protein that makes my hair brown. But, how exactly does a protein make me like books? Similarly, how exactly does a protein make me more aggressive or angry?
Well, there’s this gene called the ‘Monoamine Oxidase - A’ gene - or ‘MAO-A’ gene that codes for …. You guessed it: MAO A! It’s function is regulating the release and breakdown of the neurotransmitters serotonin, dopamine, and noradrenalin so that once they do what they are supposed to do they don’t build up or interact with other receptors, causing problems for communication between parts of the brain.
Now, there’s this version of MAO-A that scientists call ‘the warrior gene’. Several different versions of the gene are found in different individuals, although a functional gene is present in most humans. In the variant, the allele associated with behavioral traits is shorter and may produce less MAO-A enzyme. Studies have linked the “Warrior Gene” to increased risk-taking and to retaliatory behavior. People with the “Warrior Gene” are not necessarily more aggressive, but they are more likely to respond aggressively to perceived conflict.
Let’s look at a study conducted by talented group consisting of Rose McDermott of Brown University Dustin Tingley of Princeton University, Jonathan Cowden of University of California, Santa Barbara, Giovanni Frazzetto of London School of Economics, and Dominic D. P. Johnson of University of Edinburgh. Their paper is called “Monoamine Oxidase A gene (MAOA) predicts behavioral aggression following provocation”. In this study, subjects paid to punish those they believed had taken money from them by administering varying amounts of unpleasantly hot sauce to their opponent. Yikes!
Results showed that individuals with the low activity variant of the MAO-A gene were just as likely as participants with the high activity variant to retaliate when the loss was small. However, they were more likely to retaliate and with greater force when the loss was large.
Essentially, scientists believe that this fascinating gene, when not expressed properly, can lead to more aggressive responses - but it depends on a lot of other factors also. Factors may include abuse, trauma, persecution and more. There are also factors such as nature vs. nurture - which we’ll explain in the next video.
For now, we don’t know how strongly genes influence our personality - there’s no denying they have some effect! This means it's entirely possible that it the gamma particles are to blame for sweet, kind Bruce Banner losing his cool.
To find out more we suggest looking at the following links to start:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetics_of_aggression
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoamine_oxidase_A
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2650118/
http://www.salon.com/2012/05/28/is_aggression_genetic/
http://www.americanownews.com/story/16942364/the-warrior-gene-is-aggression-in-your-dna
http://dna-explained.com/2013/06/16/the-warrior-gene/
