Birth complications combined with early maternal rejection at age 1 year predispose to violent crime at age 18 years

Disparities in violent fatal injury among racial and ethnic minorities, 2009-2019: a portfolio analysis of United States-National Institutes of Health

The excess mortality burden due to violent fatal injuries is an urgent public health issue for adolescents and young adults, especially those from racial and ethnic minority populations. We examined the research portfolio of the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) related to violent fatal injuries between 2009 and 2019 to focus on adolescents and young adults from NIH-designated populations experiencing health disparities and to identify trends and research gaps. We analyzed funded projects by populations covered, geographic location of the study population, type of research (etiology, intervention, methodology), type of determinants, and publications generated. In 10 years, NIH funded 17 grants that produced 90 publications. Researchers used socioecological frameworks most to study violent crime, except in rural locations. Research gaps include the direct impact of violent crime among those victimized and health care (the least studied determinant) and premature mortality disparities caused by hate crimes.

Low Self-Control and Delinquent Behavior Among Caribbean Youths: The Moderating Role of Parental Supervision

Delinquent behavior represents a serious concern in the Caribbean. In order to provide insights useful for explaining deviant behavior among youths in Caribbean countries, this study examines the importance of self-control and parental supervision as predictors of deviant behavior. The study assesses direct as well as interaction effects of both variables. For the study, data from Guyana, St. Kitts and Nevis and St. Lucia were analyzed. The sample included 1,140 juveniles aged between 10 and 19 years. The results of regression analyses showed that self-control was a significant predictor of delinquent behavior. It was also found that the provision of parental supervision was able to mitigate the impact of low self-control on delinquency. This finding applied to males as well as females in the sample.

Childhood trauma, psychiatric disorders, and criminality in women: Associations with serum levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor

Psychiatric disorders and childhood trauma are highly prevalent in female inmates. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) plays a number of roles in neuronal survival, structure, and function. Data in the literature suggest that it is a neurobiological substrate that moderates the impact of childhood adversities on the late expression of psychiatric disorders. The aim of this study was to determine whether five childhood trauma subtypes-physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, physical neglect, and emotional neglect-are associated with adult psychiatric disorders, BDNF levels, and criminality among incarcerated women. This was a cross-sectional study involving a consecutive sample of 110 women, divided into three groups of women (forensic - mentally ill who committed crimes, clinical psychiatric inpatients and healthy controls). The Childhood Trauma Questionnaire and the Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview-Plus were applied in the whole sample, and BDNF levels were measured in a sub-sample of 54 women. The rates of mental illness and childhood trauma were high in the forensic group. Emotional abuse was higher in the clinical and forensic groups than in the healthy control group. Lower BDNF levels were associated with emotional abuse in the forensic group as well as with sexual abuse in the healthy control group. After multinomial logistic regression, lower levels of BDNF, higher levels of emotional abuse and the presence of familial offense were considered factors related to clinical psychiatric group. The results of this study underscore the idea that BDNF may be an important factor related to the development of diseases and criminality in women who are victims of childhood trauma, becoming a possible biological marker.

Emotional Rejection of the Infant: Status of the Concept

Emotional rejection of the infant is a morbid, clinical phenomenon, central to mother-infant psychiatry. It occurs in about 1% of births in the general population, but much more often in mothers referred to specialist services. It has severe consequences for children, but responds well to treatment. It is now better recognized, but research is required, especially cohort studies and neuroscientific investigations.

Neighborhood as a predictor of non-aggressive, but not aggressive, antisocial behaviors in adulthood

BACKGROUND

Prior meta-analytic work has highlighted important etiological distinctions between aggressive (AGG) and non-aggressive rule-breaking (RB) dimensions of antisocial behavior. Among these is the finding that RB is influenced by the environment more than is AGG. Relatively little research, however, has sought to identify the specific environmental experiences that contribute to this effect. The current study sought to do just this.

METHOD

We examined whether unrelated adults residing in the same neighborhood (n = 1915 participants in 501 neighborhoods) were more similar in their AGG and RB than would be expected by chance. Analyses focused on simple multi-level models, with the participant as the lower-level unit and the neighborhood as the upper-level unit.

RESULTS

Results revealed little to no evidence of neighborhood-level variance in AGG. By contrast, 11+% of the variance in RB could be predicted from participant neighborhood, results that persisted even when considering the possibility of genetic relatedness across participants and neighborhood selection effects. Moreover, 17% of this neighborhood-level variance in RB was accounted for by neighborhood structural characteristics and social processes.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings bolster prior suggestions that broader contextual experiences, like the structural and social characteristics of one's neighborhood, contribute in a meaningful way to RB in particular. Our results also tentatively imply that this association may be environmental in origin. Future work should seek to develop additional, stronger designs capable of more clearly leveraging genetic un-relatedness to improve causal inferences regarding the environment.

A prospective investigation of neurodevelopmental risk factors for adult antisocial behavior combining official arrest records and self-reports

Neurodevelopmental deficits are postulated to play an important role in the etiology of persistent antisocial behavior (ASB). Yet it remains uncertain as to which particular deficits are most closely associated with ASB. We seek to advance this understanding using prospectively collected data from a birth cohort in which multiple indices of neurodevelopmental functioning and ASB were assessed. Participants (n = 2776) were members of the Providence, Rhode Island cohort of the Collaborative Perinatal Project. Information on demographic and neurodevelopmental variables was collected from pregnancy through age 7. When all offspring had reached 33 years of age an adult criminal record check was conducted. A subset of subjects also self-reported on their engagement in serious ASB. Bivariate logistic regression was used to examine the relationship between each neurodevelopmental factor and adult ASB and test whether associations varied depending on how ASB was ascertained. After controlling for background and contextual characteristics, maternal smoking during pregnancy, lower childhood verbal and performance IQ, and age 7 aggressive/impulsive behavior all significantly increased the odds of adult ASB. Associations were not modified by sex and did not depend on how ASB was assessed. However, while both males and Black participants were more likely to engage in ASB than their respective female and White counterparts, relationships were significantly stronger for official records than for self-reports. Results point to a particular subset of early neurodevelopmental risks for antisocial outcomes in adulthood. Findings also suggest that prior contradictory results are not due to the use of official records versus self-reported outcomes.

Why psychopathy matters: Implications for public health and violence prevention

Psychopathy is an early-appearing risk factor for severe and chronic violence. The violence largely attributable to psychopathy constitutes a substantial portion of the societal burden to the public health and criminal justice systems, and thus necessitates significant attention from prevention experts. Yet, despite a vast base of research in psychology and criminology, the public health approach to violence has generally neglected to consider this key variable. Fundamentally, the public health approach to violence prevention is focused on achieving change at the population level to provide the most benefit to the maximum number of people. Increasing attention to the individual-level factor of psychopathy in public health could improve our ability to reduce violence at the community and societal levels. We conclude that the research literature on psychopathy points to a pressing need for a broad-based public health approach with a focus on primary prevention. Further, we consider how measuring psychopathy in public health research may benefit violence prevention, and ultimately society, in general.

Early life adversities and adolescent antisocial behavior: The role of cardiac autonomic nervous system reactivity in the TRAILS study

In the current study, the role of pre-ejection period (PEP) and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) was studied in the association between prior adversities and antisocial behavior in adolescence. PEP and RSA task reactivity and recovery to a public speaking task were assessed in adolescents from a longitudinal population-based study (N=624, Mage=16.14 years, 49.2% boys). Perinatal adversities were unrelated to antisocial behavior, but experiencing more stressful adversities between age 0 and 15 was associated with antisocial behavior at age 16 in boys with blunted PEP reactivity and smaller PEP differences from rest to recovery. Number of adversities between age 0 and 15 was associated with antisocial behavior in boys with blunted and girls with heightened RSA reactivity and larger PEP differences from rest to recovery. The association between prior adversities and antisocial behavior were small in effect size and depended upon sex and PEP and RSA reactivity and recovery.

Cumulative biomedical risk and social cognition in the second year of life: prediction and moderation by responsive parenting

At 18 months, children show marked variability in their social-cognitive skill development, and the preponderance of past research has focused on constitutional and contextual factors in explaining this variability. Extending this literature, the current study examined whether cumulative biomedical risk represents another source of variability in social cognition at 18 months. Further, we aimed to determine whether responsive parenting moderated the association between biomedical risk and social cognition. A prospective community birth cohort of 501 families was recruited at the time of the child's birth. Cumulative biomedical risk was measured as a count of 10 prenatal/birth complications. Families were followed up at 18 months, at which point social-cognitive data was collected on children's joint attention, empathy, cooperation, and self-recognition using previously validated tasks. Concurrently, responsive maternal behavior was assessed through observational coding of mother-child interactions. After controlling for covariates (e.g., age, gender, child language, socioeconomic variables), both cumulative biomedical risk and maternal responsivity significantly predicted social cognition at 18 months. Above and beyond these main effects, there was also a significant interaction between biomedical risk and maternal responsivity, such that higher biomedical risk was significantly associated with compromised social cognition at 18 months, but only in children who experienced low levels of responsive parenting. For those receiving comparatively high levels of responsive parenting, there was no apparent effect of biomedical risk on social cognition. This study shows that cumulative biomedical risk may be one source of inter-individual variability in social cognition at 18 months. However, positive postnatal experiences, particularly high levels of responsive parenting, may protect children against the deleterious effects of these risks on social cognition.

Neuroendocrinology of childbirth and mother-child attachment: the basis of an etiopathogenic model of perinatal neurobiological disorders

This review focuses on the neuroendocrine mechanisms in the mother and the newborn that are involved in the generation and consolidation of mother-child attachment. The role that different hormones and neurotransmitters play on the regulation of these mechanisms during parturition, the immediate postpartum period and lactation is discussed. Interferences in the initiation of mother-child attachment may have potential long-term effects for the behavior and affection of the newborn. Therefore, the possible consequences of alterations in the physiological neuroendocrine mechanisms of attachment, caused by elective Cesarean section, intrapartum hormonal manipulations, preterm delivery, mother-infant postpartum separation and bottle-feeding instead of breastfeeding are also discussed.

Epigenetics in adaptive evolution and development: the interplay between evolving species and epigenetic mechanisms: extract from Trygve Tollefsbol (ed.) (2011) Handbook of epigenetics--the new molecular and medical genetics. Chapter 26. Amsterdam, USA: Elsevier, pp. 423-446

By comparing epigenetics of current species with fossil records across evolutionary transitions, we can gauge the moment of emergence of some novel mechanisms in evolution, and recognize that epigenetic mechanisms have a bearing on mutation. Understanding the complexity and changeability of these mechanisms, as well as the changes they can effect, is both fascinating and of vital practical benefit. Our most serious pandemics of so-called 'non-communicable' diseases - mental and cardiovascular disorders, obesity and diabetes, rooted in the 'metabolic syndrome' - are evidently related to effects on our evolutionary mechanisms of agricultural and food industrialization, modern lifestyle and diet. Pollution affects us directly as well as indirectly by its destruction of ecologically essential biosystems. Evidently such powerful conditions of existence have epigenetic effects on both our health and our continuing evolution. Such effects are most profound during reproductive and developmental processes, when levels of hormones, as affected by stress particularly, may be due to modern cultures in childbearing such as excessive intervention, separation, maternal distress and disruption of bonding. Mechanisms of genomic imprinting seem likely to throw light on problems in assisted reproductive technology, among other transgenerational effects.

Transgenerational healing: Educating children in genesis of healthy children, with focus on nutrition, emotion, and epigenetic effects on brain development

Although our continuing evolution can never achieve our perfection, we long for our children's birth and health to be near-perfect. Many children are born healthy, though fewer than is possible. Birthing and health rapidly improved generally due to modern housing, sanitation and medicine, as well as birth interventions. Arguably interventions have exceeded the optimal level, without enough regard for natural physical and intuitive resources. Conception, often too easy, receives too little personal preparation unless a couple has problems. Nurturing the health of sperm and ovum seems hard to focus on, yet is needed by both parents - and even by the four grandparents. What are the key factors? Positive: The fields of hormones/emotions and of nutrition/metabolism. Negative: stress, poor nutrition, toxins, diseases; much being due to poverty. Positive and negative both have structural and also epigenetic effects. Interventions, essential or inessential, are seldom without negative side effects. Health can best, and most economically, be generated at the beginning of life, through healthy conception, gestation and birth. Understanding prime needs improves initial health. It also informs therapy of any early-life problems. Healing is therefore more efficient when transgenerational, and much more powerful than individual healing. My vision of healing is safeguarding our evolution in progress. Children's choices - eating, exercise, emotional attitudes and relationships - are already profoundly affecting any children they may have, their mental and physical health. The most practical starting point seems to be educating boys as well as girls. Childhood is therefore the time to educate them in choices. The correction of often unnoticed problems- nutrient deficits, toxins, uro-genital disease - has enabled nearly nine out of ten couples to bear fully healthy babies, even following severe problems - infertility, miscarriages, stillbirths and malformations. Correcting problems before conception prevents both structural faults and wrong setting of gene-switches. Children's habits set. Once courting most are preoccupied and many pregnant unintentionally. Childhood is the time to be adopting a healthy lifestyle, the way to healthy babies The mother's nutritional and emotional status throughout pregnancy continues to affect her child's future physical and mental health, behaviour and ability. Before conception a woman needs to build her appropriate body stores - vitamins and minerals, proteins, docosahexaenoic acid. Before bearing another child, a replenishment time of 3 years is desirable. A return to childbearing in the 20s and early 30s could reduce risks that have risen with the recent shift towards conception by school children and by women in their late 30s or more. Governments, schoolteachers, health professionals, need to adopt this policy of transgenerational health. Empowerment with knowledge is the one way to fend off the growing pandemic of mental ill health and related disorders and to make the most of a nation's genetic potential. Financially there could be no better investment, let alone in enhancing people's lives. Childhood is the most appropriate time for education in this way to generating a healthy, able and peaceful human race. Essential to our amazing genetic systems are the resources of land, sea and air. We are one with our biosphere. We need urgently to follow up the vital work of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease, and of Far East initiatives in sea-bed and sea husbandry.

A Swedish national adoption study of criminality

BACKGROUND

To clarify the role of genetic and environmental factors in criminal behavior (CB), we examined all CB and violent and non-violent subtypes (VCB and NVCB, respectively) in a Swedish national sample of adoptees and their relatives.

METHOD

CB was defined by a conviction in the Swedish Crime Register with standard definitions for VCB and NVCB subtypes. We examined adoptees born 1950-1991 (n = 18 070) and their biological (n = 79 206) and adoptive (n = 47 311) relatives.

RESULTS

The risk for all CB was significantly elevated in the adopted-away offspring of biological parents of which at least one had CB [odds ratio (OR) 1.5, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.4-1.6] and in the biological full and half-siblings of CB adoptees (OR 1.4, 95% CI 1.2-1.6 and OR 1.3, 95% CI 1.2-1.3, respectively). A genetic risk index (including biological parental/sibling history of CB and alcohol abuse) and an environmental risk index (including adoptive parental and sibling CB and a history of adoptive parental divorce, death, and medical illness) both strongly predicted probability of CB. These genetic and environmental risk indices acted additively on adoptee risk for CB. Moderate specificity was seen in the transmission of genetic risk for VCB and NVCB between biological parents and siblings and adoptees.

CONCLUSIONS

CB is etiologically complex and influenced by a range of genetic risk factors including a specific liability to CB and a vulnerability to broader externalizing behaviors, and by features of the adoptive environment including parental CB, divorce and death. Genetic risk factors for VCB and NVCB may be at least partially distinct.

Violent crime, suicide, and premature mortality in patients with schizophrenia and related disorders: a 38-year total population study in Sweden

BACKGROUND

People with schizophrenia and related disorders are at an increased risk of adverse outcomes, including conviction of a violent offence, suicide, and premature mortality. However, the rates of, and risk factors for, these outcomes need clarification as a basis for population-based and targeted interventions. We aimed to determine rates and risk factors for these outcomes, and investigate to what extent they are shared across outcomes and are specific to schizophrenia and related disorders.

METHODS

We undertook a total population cohort study in Sweden of 24 297 patients with schizophrenia and related disorders between January, 1972 and December, 2009. Patients were matched by age and sex to people from the general population (n=485 940) and also to unaffected sibling controls (n=26 357). First, we investigated rates of conviction of a violent offence, suicide, and premature mortality, with follow-up until conviction of a violent offence, emigration, death, or end of follow-up (Dec 31, 2009), whichever occurred first. Second, we analysed associations between these adverse outcomes and sociodemographic, individual, familial, and distal risk factors, for men and women separately, with Cox proportional hazards models. Finally, we assessed time trends in adverse outcomes between 1972 and 2009, for which we compared patients with unaffected siblings, and analysed associations with changes in the number of nights spent in inpatient beds in psychiatric facilities nationwide.

FINDINGS

Within 5 years of their initial diagnosis, 13·9% of men and 4·7% of women with schizophrenia and related disorders had a major adverse outcome (10·7% of men and 2·7% of women were convicted of a violent offence, and 3·3% of men and 2·0% of women died prematurely of any cause). During the study, the adjusted odds ratio of any adverse outcomes for patients compared with general population controls was 7·5 (95% CI 7·2-7·9) in men and 11·1 (10·2-12·1) in women. Three risk factors that were present before diagnosis were predictive of any adverse outcome: drug use disorders, criminality, and self-harm, which were also risk factors for these outcomes in unaffected siblings and in the general population. Over the period 1973-2009, the odds of these outcomes increased in patients with schizophrenia and related disorders compared with unaffected siblings.

INTERPRETATION

Schizophrenia and related disorders are associated with substantially increased rates of violent crime, suicide, and premature mortality. Risk factors for these three outcomes included both those specific to individuals with schizophrenia and related disorders, and those shared with the general population. Therefore, a combination of population-based and targeted strategies might be necessary to reduce the substantial rates of adverse outcomes in patients with schizophrenia and related disorders.

Body size at birth and psychiatric disorders among adolescents: a clinical study of 310 under-age inpatient adolescents in Northern Finland

BACKGROUND

Deviant birth measure is a risk factor for later somatic illness but also for later psychiatric disorders of the offspring. Only a few studies have examined the association of birth measures to later psychiatric disorders among adolescents. Studies on sex differences in these associations are scarce as well.

METHODS

The cases consisted of 508 adolescents (208 boys and 300 girls) aged 12-17 years, who were admitted to inpatient psychiatric hospitalization between 2001 and 2006. In addition, 478 healthy controls were derived from the Northern Finnish Birth Cohort 1986, born in approximately the same period and same area as the cases. Data of birth measures were collected from the National Birth Register for cases and from antenatal clinics for controls. Both cases and controls were interviewed using the Schedule for Affective Disorder and Schizophrenia for School-Age Children-Present and Lifetime (K-SADS-PL) to assess psychiatric disorders.

RESULTS

The adolescent patients were statistically significantly shorter and had higher ponderal index at birth compared to healthy controls. In addition, the age of the mothers at adolescent's birth was significantly younger in the patients than the controls. After controlling for various covariates, a 2.4-fold increased likelihood for internalizing disorders was seen among male adolescents with high ponderal index.

CONCLUSIONS

The association of birth measures to psychiatric disorders was confirmed in our study, particularly among male adolescents suffering from internalizing disorders. Further studies in larger adolescent samples are needed to confirm our findings and clear up the association of high ponderal index to specific psychiatric disorders.

Prenatal smoking and genetic risk: examining the childhood origins of externalizing behavioral problems

An ever-growing body of research has begun to focus closely on the role of prenatal smoke exposure in the development of conduct problems in children. To this point, there appears to be a correlation between prenatal nicotine exposure and behavioral problems. We build on this prior research by examining the coalescence of prenatal smoke exposure and genetic risk factors in the prediction of behavior problems. Specifically, the current study analyzed data from a nationally representative sample of twin pairs collected during early childhood. Our findings suggested that an interaction existed between prenatal smoke exposure and genetic risk factors which corresponded to increased risk of behavior problems. These findings provide evidence of a gene-environment interaction, in that prenatal smoke exposure conditioned the influence of genetic risk factors in the prediction of aggressive behavior. Interestingly, the association between genetic risk and prenatal smoking was sex-specific, and only reached statistical significance in females. Given the nature of our findings, it may shed light on why heterogeneity exists concerning the relationship between prenatal smoke exposure and externalizing behavioral problems in children.

The association between p3 amplitude at age 11 and criminal offending at age 23

Reduced P3 amplitude to targets is an information-processing deficit associated with adult antisocial behavior and may reflect dysfunction of the temporal-parietal junction. This study aims to examine whether this deficit precedes criminal offending. From a birth cohort of 1,795 children, 73 individuals who become criminal offenders at age 23 and 123 noncriminal individuals were assessed on P3 amplitude. The two groups did not differ on gender, ethnicity, and social adversity. P3 amplitude was measured over the temporal-parietal junction during a visual continuous performance task at age 11, together with antisocial behavior. Criminal convictions were assessed at age 23. Reduced P3 amplitude at age 11 was associated with increased antisocial behavior at age 11. Criminal offenders showed significantly reduced P3 amplitudes to target stimuli compared to controls. Findings remained significant after controlling for antisocial behavior and hyperactivity at age 11 and alcoholism at age 23. P3 deficits at age 11 are associated with adult crime at age 23, suggesting that reduced P3 may be an early neurobiological marker for cognitive and affective processes subserved by the temporal-parietal junction that place a child at risk for adult crime.

History of abuse and neglect in patients with schizophrenia who have a history of violence

OBJECTIVE

To determine the prevalence of five forms of abuse/neglect during childhood and adolescence in a group of schizophrenic patients with a history of violence.

METHODS

Twenty-eight patients hospitalized in a highly secured psychiatric unit were included. Abuse and neglect during patients' growth were evaluated with the childhood trauma questionnaire (CTQ). History of substance abuse (consumption of cannabis, and/or alcohol, and/or heroin, and/or cocaine during the year that preceded the hospitalization), incarceration, and death of a close parent were also collected.

RESULTS

We found that 46.4% of patients experienced at least 1 form of abuse and/or neglect during childhood and 21.4% of them had experienced more than 2 forms of abuse and/or neglect. The 2 most frequent forms of neglect and abuse were physical abuse (39.3%) and emotional neglect (17.9%). History of substance abuse was found for cannabis (57.1%), alcohol (57.1%), and cocaine and/or heroin (35.7%). We found that 42.8% of patients had 1 close relative who had died during their growth and that 41.6% of these deaths were violent.

CONCLUSION

It appears important to systematically search for and assess a history of abuse and neglect during growth in schizophrenic patients with a history of violence, in order to offer specific treatments for this group of patients.

Neurocriminology

In the past several decades there has been an explosion of research into the biological correlates to antisocial behavior. This chapter reviews the state of current research on the topic, including a review of the genetics, neuroimaging, neuropsychological, and electrophysiological studies in delinquent and antisocial populations. Special attention is paid to the biopsychosocial model and gene-environment interactions in producing antisocial behavior.

Maternal rejection of the young child: present status of the clinical syndrome

This article reviews severe disorders of the mother-infant relationship involving emotional rejection of the infant in the first year of its life. Infants exposed to their mother's hatred and rage may suffer far-ranging and long-term disadvantages, and are at risk of maltreatment. Diagnosis, therapy and research have been hampered by the lack of recognition of this clinical syndrome in the classifications. The imminent revision of these classificatory systems must include them.

Early Health Risk Factors for Violence: Conceptualization, Review of the Evidence, and Implications

Violence and aggression are public health problems that can benefit from ongoing research into risk reduction and prevention. Current developmental theories of violence and aggression emphasize biological and psychosocial factors, particularly during adolescence. However, there has been less focus on understanding the interactive, multiplicative effects of these processes. Furthermore, little attention has been given to the pre-, peri-, and postnatal periods, where prevention and intervention may yield effective results. Early health risk factors that influence negative behavioral outcomes include prenatal and postnatal nutrition, tobacco use during pregnancy, maternal depression, birth complications, traumatic brain injury, lead exposure, and child abuse. There is an ample literature to suggest that these early health risk factors may increase the likelihood of childhood externalizing behaviors, aggression, juvenile delinquency, adult criminal behavior, and/or violence. This paper proposes an early health risk factors framework for violence prediction, built on existing developmental theories of criminal behavior and supported by empirical findings. This framework addresses gaps in the adolescent psychopathology literature and presents a novel conceptualization of behavioral disturbance that emphasizes the pre-, peri-, and post-natal periods, when a child's development is critical and the opportunity for behavioral and environmental modification is high. Implications for such a framework on violence prevention programs are discussed.

Perinatal risk factors in the development of aggression and violence

Over the past several decades, the relative contribution of both environmental and genetic influences in the development of aggression and violence has been explored extensively. Only fairly recently, however, has it become increasingly evident that early perinatal life events may substantially increase the vulnerability toward the development of violent and aggressive behaviors in offspring across the lifespan. Early life risk factors, such as pregnancy and birth complications and intrauterine exposure to environmental toxins, appear to have a profound and enduring impact on the neuroregulatory systems mediating violence and aggression, yet the emergence of later adverse behavioral outcomes appears to be both complex and multidimensional. The present chapter reviews available experimental and clinical findings to provide a framework on perinatal risk factors that are associated with altered developmental trajectories leading to violence and aggression, and also highlights the genetic contributions in the expression of these behaviors.

Reduced electrodermal fear conditioning from ages 3 to 8 years is associated with aggressive behavior at age 8 years

BACKGROUND

Poor fear conditioning characterizes adult psychopathy and criminality, but it is not known whether it is related to aggressive/antisocial behavior in early childhood.

METHODS

Using a differential, partial reinforcement conditioning paradigm, electrodermal activity was recorded from 200 male and female children at ages 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8 years. Antisocial/aggressive and hyperactive-inattentive measures were collected at age 8.

RESULTS

Poor electrodermal fear conditioning from ages 3 to 8 years was associated with aggressive behavior at age 8 in both males and females.

CONCLUSIONS

Results indicate that the relationship between poor fear conditioning and aggression occurs early in childhood. Enhanced electrodermal fear conditioning may protect children against future aggressive/violent behavior. Abnormal amygdala functioning, as indirectly assessed by fear conditioning, may be one of the factors influencing the development of childhood aggression.

The sociopathy of sociobiology

Mealey's evolutionary reasoning is logically flawed. Furthermore, the evidence presented in favor of a genetic contribution to the causation of sociopathy is overinterpreted. Given the potentially large societal impact of sociobiological speculation on the roots of criminality, more-than-usual caution in interpreting data is called for.

Prisoner's Dilemma, Chicken, and mixedstrategy evolutionary equilibria

Mealey's interesting interpretation of sociopathy is based on an inappropriate two-person game model. A multiperson, compound game version of Chicken would be more suitable, because a population engaging in random pairwise interactions with that structure would evolve to an equilibrium in which a fixed proportion of strategic choices was exploitative, antisocial, and risky, as required by Mealey's interpretation.