38
views
0
recommends
+1 Recommend
0 collections
    0
    shares
      • Record: found
      • Abstract: not found
      • Article: not found

      Neural mechanisms of genetic risk for impulsivity and violence in humans

      Read this article at

      ScienceOpenPublisherPMC
      Bookmark
          There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

          Abstract

          Neurobiological factors contributing to violence in humans remain poorly understood. One approach to this question is examining allelic variation in the X-linked monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) gene, previously associated with impulsive aggression in animals and humans. Here, we have studied the impact of a common functional polymorphism in MAOA on brain structure and function assessed with MRI in a large sample of healthy human volunteers. We show that the low expression variant, associated with increased risk of violent behavior, predicted pronounced limbic volume reductions and hyperresponsive amygdala during emotional arousal, with diminished reactivity of regulatory prefrontal regions, compared with the high expression allele. In men, the low expression allele is also associated with changes in orbitofrontal volume, amygdala and hippocampus hyperreactivity during aversive recall, and impaired cingulate activation during cognitive inhibition. Our data identify differences in limbic circuitry for emotion regulation and cognitive control that may be involved in the association of MAOA with impulsive aggression, suggest neural systems-level effects of X-inactivation in human brain, and point toward potential targets for a biological approach toward violence.

          Related collections

          Author and article information

          Journal
          Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
          Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
          Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
          0027-8424
          1091-6490
          April 18 2006
          April 18 2006
          March 28 2006
          April 18 2006
          : 103
          : 16
          : 6269-6274
          Article
          10.1073/pnas.0511311103
          1458867
          16569698
          b0f31e07-8265-4915-9a79-38ace40da691
          © 2006
          History

          Comments

          Comment on this article