Reduced prefrontal and increased subcortical brain functioning assessed using positron emission tomography in predatory and affective murderers

Abstract

There appear to be no brain imaging studies investigating which brain mechanisms subserve affective, impulsive violence versus planned, predatory violence. It was hypothesized that affectively violent offenders would have lower prefrontal activity, higher subcortical activity, and reduced prefrontal/subcortical ratios relative to controls, while predatory violent offenders would show relatively normal brain functioning. Glucose metabolism was assessed using positron emission tomography in 41 comparisons, 15 predatory murderers, and nine affective murderers in left and right hemisphere prefrontal (medial and lateral) and subcortical (amygdala, midbrain, hippocampus, and thalamus) regions. Affective murderers relative to comparisons had lower left and right prefrontal functioning, higher right hemisphere subcortical functioning, and lower right hemisphere prefrontal/subcortical ratios. In contrast, predatory murderers had prefrontal functioning that was more equivalent to comparisons, while also having excessively high right subcortical activity. Results support the hypothesis that emotional, unplanned impulsive murderers are less able to regulate and control aggressive impulses generated from subcortical structures due to deficient prefrontal regulation. It is hypothesized that excessive subcortical activity predisposes to aggressive behaviour, but that while predatory murderers have sufficiently good prefrontal functioning to regulate these aggressive impulses, the affective murderers lack such prefrontal control over emotion regulation. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Brain imaging research on psychopathy: Implications for punishment, prediction, and treatment in youth and adults

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Cuestionario de agresión reactiva y proactiva : un instrumento de medida de la agresión en adolescentes

“…Este sub-tipo «hostil, impulsivo o reactivo» se ha relacionado consistentemente con la falta de funciones cognitivas inhibitorias, autocontrol reducido, baja capacidad de planificación cognitiva, impulsividad y hostilidad (Raine et al, 1998;; además de confusión del pensamiento (Barratt, Stanford, Dowdy, Kent y Felthous, 1997), activación emocional intensa (enojo y pérdida de control de la conducta) y reacción a alguna provocación. La agresión reactiva parece estar asociada a reacciones defensivas, miedo, irritabilidad, hostilidad y provocación; así como también a sesgos en el procesamiento de la información social y problemas psicológicos como depresión y somatización (Dodge y Coie, 1987;Volavka, 1995).…”

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“…For instance, adults with premeditated aggression have relatively normal performance on tests of executive function (Stanford et al, 2003b), and they emit an appropriate level of cortical activation on physiological measures (Raine et al, 1998;Stanford et al, 2003b). However, relative to impulsive aggressors, adults with premeditated aggression score high on measures of psychopathic traits (e.g., callousness and unemotionality; Cornell et al, 1996), and their aggressive behavior is largely unresponsive to pharmacological intervention (Barratt et al, 1997a).…”