Sham rage

Lore & Background

In humans, sham rage appears to be caused by uninhibited hypothalamic discharge, with known causes including electrode stimulation, carbon monoxide poisoning, and insulin hypoglycemia. However, the concept has been rejected by many affective neuroscientists, including Jaak Panksepp, who argued that nonhuman animals displaying rage behaviors do indeed experience rage. The concept is considered by some to be a false concept and an artifact of the politics of the period of science during which it was created.

Reader's Guide

Sham rage is significant as a historical concept in neuroscience that attempted to separate emotional behavior from emotional experience. It emerged from early 20th-century experiments on decorticate animals, particularly by Cannon and Britton, and influenced understanding of subcortical emotional circuits. The concept has been largely rejected by modern affective neuroscientists, who argue that animals displaying rage behaviors likely experience rage. The controversy highlights the difficulty of inferring subjective experience from observable behavior and the influence of scientific politics on theory. Despite its rejection, research on sham rage contributed to mapping the neural generators of rage, including the roles of the hypothalamus, amygdala, and norepinephrine. The term remains in use historically to describe rage-like behaviors in decorticate preparations, but its implication of absent inner experience is no longer widely accepted.

Did You Know?

• The term was in use by Walter Bradford Cannon and Sydney William Britton as early as 1925.
• A study by Reis and Fuxe (1969) found that giving cats protriptyline worsened sham rage symptoms, while haloperidol reduced them.
• In humans, sham rage can be caused by carbon monoxide poisoning and insulin hypoglycemia.