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SAMRC grant advances research to unravel sexual violence
Author: FMHS Marketing & Communications / FGGW Bemarking & Kommunikasie – Sue Segar
Published: 26/04/2022

Dr Lihle Qulu, a senior lecturer in the Division of Medical Physiology, was recently awarded an Early Investigators Programme grant for 2021/2022 from the South African Medical Research Council (SAMRC), and said she is “over the moon" about the grant as it means the laboratory she set up to study sexual violence can “hit the ground running". 

Qulu, who has a PhD in neuroscience, has been researching the neurological and physiological effects of rape for the past few years. The grant will enable Qulu to expand her existing laboratory research into understanding the contributing factors associate with men who rape. 

The aim of the SAMRC Early Investigators Programme is to enhance health research in South Africa by providing funding for the next generation of health researchers. 

“The grant award is excellent news because, to date, we have not had an animal laboratory for neuroscience," Qulu said in an interview. “I established a laboratory last year but it was in its early stages. This funding will help to expand the project." 

Qulu also recently received an award from the Society of Neuroscientists of Africa for her work on the neuroscience of sexual violence, in which she found that early-life exposure to abuse was the most common shared experience in the lives of the convicted rapist. 

The study, a collaboration with the University of KwaZulu-Natal, ran a research project with prisoners incarcerated for rape in the Westville Prison outside e'Thekwini to look at the underlying factors related to rape. It followed extensive research Qulu did with rodents in which she assessed their behaviour in forced and consensual mating situations. 

Her study also found that social isolation results in increased sexual aggression towards females and in increased aggression towards males. 

According to Qulu, approximately 35% of women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence, or sexual violence by a non-partner at some point in their lives. 

“The rate of sexual violence in South Africa is among the highest in the world. In South Africa, police reported sexual offences increased from 50,108 in 2018 to 52,420 in 2019. 

“The perspectives that drive men to sexual violence have far reaching consequences beyond pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections, which include post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and aggression." 

While a relatively large amount of research has been done on the female victims of sexual violence, not many translational studies have looked at the physiology of both the victim and perpetrator of sexual assault. 

Qulu's proposed study aims to investigate the role of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis in sexual violence in both male rapists and female victims. (The HPA axis describes the interaction between the hypothalamus, pituitary gland and adrenal glands.) 

This study will be conducted on animals, and human convicted rapists from Westville prison, as well as a separate cohort of rape-exposed females. A range of candidate genes will be assessed on all the plasma/serum samples obtained from humans and brain tissues of animals. 

According to Qulu, when the HPA axis is dysregulated (due to chronic stressors), this can result in emotional dysregulation which can result in increased aggressive behaviour in males. Dysregulation refers to a poor ability to manage emotional responses or to manage them within an acceptable range of typical emotional reactions. 

Qulu said her research will focus on putting male rats into isolation to dysregulate their stress centres, after which they will be exposed to a female rat who is in her fertile window. The fertile female will then be removed and replaced with a female that is not in oestrus and the behaviour of the male will be observed. 

“We will assess whether he is OK with the lack of receptiveness of the female not in oestrus or whether he attempts to force himself on her. The female will be removed before any potential violence takes place," Qulu said. 

Qulu said she will be working with Professor Sian Hemming, from the FMHS' Department of Psychiatry, and a post-doctoral student, Dr Jani Nothling, on the research. 

“We hope that our findings will provide insights into how to reduce recidivism or lead to interventions that reduce recidivism in terms of sexual violence," Qulu said. 

“Gender-based violence is a pandemic on its own and it is destroying the lives of men and women. Once you have been through it, you do not come back as the same person. We cannot leave it unattended. With the state-of-the-art equipment which we now have in our laboratory, we will be able to do more research into this scourge and, hopefully, contribute towards making a difference."​