Well, not quite what the title entails but very similar. Researchers did a study using mice, to try and find a correlation between "friend groups" and individuals that get along well with each other. In this experiment researcher, Dr. Kelly concluded that there is a biomarker present in mice that attracts them to each other. The unaltered mice with "normal" behavior and the matching biomarkers seemed to pool together and separate themselves from the altered mice. The altered mice had undergone damage to the brain's hippocampus leading to antisocial behavior. The anti-social mice also seemed to prefer interacting with similarly anti-social mice. Dr. Kelly recalled a time where researchers observed that in humans, people with autism seemed to gravitate toward others with similar conditions as opposed to unaffected individuals. During her further research with the mice, she was able to find the specific protein marker, PDE11. In the anti-social mice, they were missing the protein marker altogether. In the normal mice, the protein marker was hidden but present. Dr. Kelly believes that if we can solve this puzzle, we may be able to better match people as partners and decrease the divorce rate as well as increase the health of the general public. People can be surrounded by others who make them feel good. I found this information very interesting. I would really like to see how it works in people. I think people have more "ins and outs" per se than mice and would wonder if it would still, despite the complexity of human beings', work?
