ReviewCorticolimbic Function in Impulsive Aggressive Behavior
Section snippets
Neural Systems Underlying Experience of Aggressive Impulses
Aggressive behaviors can be evolutionarily adaptive, for example, in the context of competition for food, resources, or mates. Animal studies have identified a number of midbrain and hypothalamic structures that are associated with aggressive responding, including the medial preoptic area, lateral septum, anterior and ventromedial hypothalamus, periaqueductal gray, and bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (2).
The amygdala has also been implicated in the initiation and expression of aggression (2
Neural Systems Underlying Decision Making
Decision making involves a cluster of related processes that allow a person to select actions that promote achievement of his or her goals or overall interests. Functions that are involved in decision making include 1) representation of the decision problem; 2) action selection based on evaluation of the candidate actions and associated potential outcomes or downstream consequences; and 3) monitoring of outcomes and learning based on feedback (23, 24, 25). A person impaired with respect to any
Neural Systems Subserving the Regulation of Emotion
Emotion regulation refers to processes that alter the duration, content, intensity, and quality of emotional experience based on the current situational context to more effectively respond to situational needs and pursue long-term goals (50, 51). Impulsive aggression has been conceptualized as being intimately tied to situational provocation and the experience of strong emotions such as outbursts of anger (1). Thus, abnormalities in emotion regulation are likely to play an important role in
Corticolimbic Function in Aggression-Related Psychiatric Disorders
Aggression is a serious problem in clinical populations. Intermittent explosive disorder (IED) is the only DSM-IV disorder for which aggression is the cardinal symptom. However, there are many other psychiatric disorders for which aggression is prominent among the diagnostic criteria, most notably borderline personality disorder (BPD), antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), and conduct disorder. Abnormalities in corticolimbic functioning may contribute to aggression in these populations.
Caveats and Limitations
There are a number of caveats concerning the findings reported in this review. First, findings are reviewed from animal and human studies that used different investigative methods and different sample sizes and were overall of different methodological quality. Generalizations were made regarding trends emerging from these studies, but these are qualitative interpretations and future work should seek to quantitatively test specific claims (e.g., using meta-analytic methods) wherever appropriate.
Conclusions
Convergent evidence indicates that impulsive aggression is mediated by subcortical circuits including brainstem regions and amygdala that subserve the production of aggressive impulses, corticolimbic circuits including OMPFC and rostral ACC that subserve decision making and social-emotional information processing, and frontoparietal regions that are involved in regulating emotions and impulsive motivational urges (Figure 1). Building on animal and human lesion evidence, neuroimaging studies are
References (101)
- et al.
Impulsive and premeditated aggression: A factor analysis of self-reported acts
Psychiatry Res
(1999) Fear and the brain: Where have we been, and where are we going?
Biol Psychiatry
(1998)- et al.
Pathways for emotion: Interactions of prefrontal and anterior temporal pathways in the amygdala of the rhesus monkey
Neuroscience
(2002) - et al.
Sequence of information processing for emotions based on the anatomic dialogue between prefrontal cortex and amygdala
Neuroimage
(2007) Partial kindling of the ventral hippocampus: Identification of changes in limbic physiology which accompany changes in feline aggression and defense
Physiol Behav
(1991)- et al.
The amygdala: Is it an essential component of the neural network for social cognition?
Neuropsychologia
(2003) - et al.
Neurobiology of decision making: A selective review from a neurocognitive and clinical perspective
Biol Psychiatry
(2005) Contributions of the prefrontal cortex to the neural basis of human decision making
Neurosci Biobehav Rev
(2002)- et al.
Selective reductions in prefrontal glucose metabolism in murderers
Biol Psychiatry
(1994) - et al.
Reduced frontotemporal perfusion in psychopathic personality
Psychiatry Res
(2002)
Persistent regional frontotemporal hypoactivity in violent offenders at follow-up
Psychiatry Res
Insensitivity to future consequences following damage to human prefrontal cortex
Cognition
Functional neuroanatomy of emotion: A meta-analysis of emotion activation studies in PET and fMRI
Neuroimage
Face and voice expression identification in patients with emotional and behavioural changes following ventral frontal lobe damage
Neuropsychologia
Doing the right thing: A common neural circuit for appropriate violent or compassionate behavior
Neuroimage
Prefrontal-subcortical pathways mediating successful emotion regulation
Neuron
Laboratory-measured aggressive behavior of women: Acute tryptophan depletion and augmentation
Neuropsychopharmacology
Relationship between platelet serotonin content and rejections of unfair offers in the ultimatum game
Neurosci Lett
The borderline diagnosis II: Biology, genetics, and clinical course
Biol Psychiatry
A brain MRI study in subjects with borderline personality disorder
J Affect Disord
Frontolimbic brain abnormalities in patients with borderline personality disorder: A volumetric magnetic resonance imaging study
Biol Psychiatry
A voxel-based morphometric MRI study in female patients with borderline personality disorder
Neuroimage
Neuroimaging in borderline personality disorder
J Psychiatr Res
Evidence of abnormal amygdala functioning in borderline personality disorder: A functional MRI study
Biol Psychiatry
Amygdala hyperreactivity in borderline personality disorder: Implications for emotional dysregulation
Biol Psychiatry
d,l-fenfluramine response in impulsive personality disorder assessed with [18F]fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography
Neuropsychopharmacology
Amygdala and orbitofrontal reactivity to social threat in individuals with impulsive aggression
Biol Psychiatry
Psychopathy and the posterior hippocampus
Behav Brain Res
Hippocampal structural asymmetry in unsuccessful psychopaths
Biol Psychiatry
A volumetric MRI study of the hippocampus in type 1 and 2 alcoholism
Behav Brain Res
Limbic abnormalities in affective processing by criminal psychopaths as revealed by functional magnetic resonance imaging
Biol Psychiatry
Brain circuits involved in emotional learning in antisocial behavior and social phobia in humans
Neurosci Lett
Neural mechanisms of aggression
Nat Rev Neurosci
Dysfunction in the neural circuitry of emotion regulation--a possible prelude to violence
Science
The amygdala, social behavior, and danger detection
Ann N Y Acad Sci
The medial extended amygdala in male reproductive behaviorA node in the mammalian social behavior network
Ann N Y Acad Sci
Emotion circuits in the brain
Annu Rev Neurosci
Neurobiology of Pavlovian fear conditioning
Annu Rev Neurosci
The amygdala: Vigilance and emotion
Mol Psychiatry
Peptides of love and fear: Vasopressin and oxytocin modulate the integration of information in the amygdala
Bioessays
Vasopressin and oxytocin excite distinct neuronal populations in the central amygdala
Science
Amygdalo-cortical projections in the monkey (Macaca fascicularis)
J Comp Neurol
Comparison of the effects of bilateral orbital prefrontal cortex lesions and amygdala lesions on emotional responses in rhesus monkeys
J Neurosci
Preliminary analysis of functions of the temporal lobes in monkeys
J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci
Deep temporal lobe stimulation and destructive lesions in episodically violent temporal lobe epileptics
Stereotaxic amygdalotomy for behavior disorders
Arch Neurol
Clinical and physiological effects of stereotaxic bilateral amygdalotomy for intractable aggression
J Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci
Neuroimaging studies of aggressive and violent behavior: Current findings and implications for criminology and criminal justice
Trauma Violence Abuse
A framework for studying the neurobiology of value-based decision making
Nat Rev Neurosci
The cognitive neuroscience of human decision making: A review and conceptual framework
Behav Cogn Neurosci Rev
Cited by (177)
Burned agricultural biomass, air pollution and crime
2023, Journal of Environmental Economics and ManagementAssociation between toxoplasmosis and bipolar disorder: A systematic review and meta-analysis
2022, Journal of Psychiatric ResearchEfficacy and tolerability of Brain Stimulation interventions in Borderline Personality Disorder: state of the art and future perspectives – A systematic review
2022, Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological PsychiatryThe Modulatory Role of Serotonin on Human Impulsive Aggression
2021, Biological PsychiatryBehavioral neuroscience of aggression
2021, Encyclopedia of Behavioral Neuroscience: Second Edition
Authors EFC and CSS contributed equally to this work.