Aggression in young children with concurrent callous-unemotional traits: can the neurosciences inform progress and innovation in treatment approaches? (original) (raw)
Related papers
Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry
In their (2005) edited volume Developmental psychobiology of aggression, David M. Stoff and Elizabeth J. Susman bring together proceedings from a conference dedicated to Robert Cairns, who contributed greatly to the study of, among other things, aggressive behavior. As described by several of the contributors, Cairns pioneered approaches designed to bridge disciplines so as to study behavior at multiple levels (e.g., from the genetic to the sociological). He went beyond the study of individual characteristics, advocating multi-level approaches and examining individuals and dyads as units of analysis. Overall, the book presents cutting edge, creative work by superb scholars, brought together to communicate the diversity of approaches already underway in integrating biology and psychology to understand aggressive behavior. Chapters address contributions of social environments and transactions, parenting, hormones, genes, neurotransmitters, and psychophysiology, across the developmental spectrum, in both human and animal studies. What follows is a brief description of the sections and component chapters. The chapters are rich and present complex ideas and data. My brief overview simply cannot do justice to the material. My goal, therefore, is to give the reader a sense of the breadth of coverage of the content. The book is organized into three sections and includes thoughtful introduction and conclusion sections by the editors. The first section emphasizes plasticity. The second section focuses on bidirectionality, or the notion that biological and environmental factors and outcomes influence each other, and that these bidirectional interchanges affect developmental trajectories. The third section is devoted to gene-environment interactions. The chapters address different ways that environmental factors and genetic influences jointly contribute to expressed behavior. The section on plasticity emphasizes the malleable nature of biological factors and how these factors affect aggression. For example, environmental experiences can affect biological risk factors for aggression and can also moderate the effects of biological risk factors on the development of aggression. The chapters in this section address a range of biological systems in humans and animals. In the first chapter, Raine reviews data regarding interactions between biological factors, such as autonomic arousal, genetics, pregnancy and birth complications, neurological factors, hormones, and neurotransmitters, and social factors, such as parenting and socioeconomic factors. He rightly notes the need for theory-driven research in these areas. Chapters by Gendreau and Lewis and by
The evidence for a neurobiological model of childhood antisocial behavior
Psychological Bulletin, 2007
Children with persistent antisocial and aggressive behavior are diagnosed as having disruptive behavior disorder. The authors review evidence that antisocial children, and especially those who persist with this behavior as they grow older, have a range of neurobiological characteristics. It is argued that serotonergic functioning and stress-regulating mechanisms are important in explaining individual differences in antisocial behavior. Moreover, low fear of punishment and physiological underactivity may predispose antisocial individuals to seek out stimulation or take risks and may help to explain poor conditioning and socialization. The authors propose a theoretical model highlighting the interplay between neurobiological deficits and cognitive and emotional functioning as mediators of the link between early adversity and antisocial behavior problems in childhood. Implications for intervention programs are discussed.
Developmental Psychology, 2008
The purpose of the present investigation was to examine the association between circadian rhythms of cortisol and physical and relational aggression. Morning arrival, pre-lunch, and afternoon predeparture salivary cortisol were assessed among 418 maltreated and nonmaltreated children (52% maltreated; 49% female) attending a summer day camp. Counselors and peers rated participants' involvement in physically and relationally aggressive behaviors. Results indicated that physical aggression was associated with heightened cortisol following morning arrival and relatively steep declines in cortisol over the day whereas relational aggression was associated with low cortisol following morning arrival and blunted diurnal change in cortisol. Moreover, maltreatment was a significant moderator of this relationship such that aggression was related to greater cortisol dysregulation among nonmaltreated than maltreated children. The findings suggest that physiological correlates of aggression may differ for physical and relational forms of aggression and among maltreated versus nonmaltreated populations. Keywords aggression; gender; cortisol; maltreatment Involvement in aggressive and antisocial behavior is associated with a host of problems for children and adolescents, including rejection by peers, internalizing symptoms, and academic difficulties (e.g.
Translational Psychiatry, 2019
Callous-unemotional (CU) traits are thought to confer risk for aggression via reduced amygdala responsivity to distress cues in others. Low cortisol reactivity is thought to confer risk for aggression via reduced arousal and this effect may be confined to boys. We tested the hypothesis that the association between childhood CU traits and aggression would be greatest in the absence of the inhibitory effects of cortisol reactivity, and that this effect would be sex dependent. Participants were 283 members of a stratified subsample within an epidemiological longitudinal cohort (WCHADS). Cortisol reactivity to a social stressor was assessed at 5 years. CU traits were reported by mothers at 5 years, and physical aggression by mothers and teachers at age 7. Results showed that CU traits were associated with elevated aggression at 7 years controlling for earlier aggression. There was no main effect of cortisol reactivity on regression. The association between CU traits and aggression was moderated by cortisol reactivity (p = .011) with a strong association between CU traits and aggression in the presence of low reactivity, and a small and non-significant association in the presence of high reactivity. This association was further moderated by child sex (p = .041) with the joint effect of high CU traits and low cortisol reactivity seen only in boys (p = .016). We report first evidence that a combined deficit in inhibitory processes associated with CU traits and low cortisol reactivity increases risk for childhood aggression, in a sex-dependent manner.
Cortisol, callous-unemotional traits, and pathways to antisocial behavior
Current Opinion in Psychiatry, 2009
Two decades of research has implicated the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis in the development of antisocial behavior in children. However, findings regarding the association between cortisol and antisocial behavior have been largely inconsistent, and the role of the HPA axis in relation to broader etiological processes remains unclear. We examine evidence that the role of the HPA axis in the development of antisocial behavior may differ across subgroups of children.
European child & adolescent psychiatry, 2017
To improve outcome for children with antisocial and aggressive behavior, it is important to know which individual characteristics contribute to reductions in problem behavior. The predictive value of a parent training (Parent Management Training Oregon; PMTO), parenting practices (monitoring, discipline, and punishment), and child neurobiological function (heart rate, cortisol) on the course of aggression was investigated. 64 boys with oppositional defiant disorder or conduct disorder (8-12 years) participated; parents of 22 boys took part in PMTO. All data were collected before the start of the PMTO, and aggression ratings were collected three times, before PMTO, and at 6 and 12 month follow-up. Parent training predicted a decline in aggression at 6 and 12 months. Child neurobiological variables, i.e., higher cortisol stress reactivity and better cortisol recovery, also predicted a decline in aggression at 6 and 12 months. Heart rate and parenting practices were not related to the ...
The neurobiology of human aggressive behavior: Neuroimaging, genetic, and neurochemical aspects
Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry, 2020
In modern societies, there is a strive to improve the quality of life related to risk of crimes which inevitably requires a better understanding of brain determinants and mediators of aggression. Neurobiology provides powerful tools to achieve this end. Pre-clinical and clinical studies show that changes in regional volumes, metabolism-function and connectivity within specific neural networks are related to aggression. Subregions of prefrontal cortex, insula, amygdala, basal ganglia and hippocampus play a major role within these circuits and have been consistently implicated in biology of aggression. Genetic variations in proteins regulating the synthesis, degradation, and transport of serotonin and dopamine as well as their signal transduction have been found to mediate behavioral variability observed in aggression. Gene-gene and gene-environment interactions represent additional important risk factors for aggressiveness. Considering the social burden of pathological forms of aggression, more basic and translational studies should be conducted to accelerate applications to clinical practice, justice courts, and policy making.
Towards an understanding of the role of the environment in the development of early callous behavior
Journal of personality, 2015
Key to understanding the long-term impact of social inequalities is identifying early behaviors that may signal higher risk for later poor psychosocial outcomes, such as psychopathology. A set of early-emerging characteristics that may signal risk for later externalizing psychopathology is Callous-Unemotional (CU) behavior. CU behavior predict severe and chronic trajectories of externalizing behaviors in youth. However, much research on CU behavior has focused on late childhood and adolescence, with little attention paid to early childhood when preventative interventions may be most effective. In this paper, we summarize our recent work showing that: (1) CU behavior can be identified in early childhood using items from common behavior checklists; (2) CU behavior predicts worse outcomes across early childhood; (3) CU behavior exhibits a distinct nomological network from other early externalizing behaviors; and (4) malleable environmental factors, particularly parenting, may play a ro...
Mechanisms differentiating normal from abnormal aggression: Glucocorticoids and serotonin
European Journal of Pharmacology, 2005
Psychopathology-associated human aggression types are induced by a variety of conditions, are behaviorally variable, and show a differential pharmacological responsiveness. Thus, there are several types of abnormal human aggression. This diversity was not reflected by conventional laboratory approaches that focused on the quantitative aspects of aggressive behavior. Recently, several laboratory models of abnormal aggression were proposed, which mainly model hyperarousal-driven aggressiveness (characteristic to intermittent explosive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, chronic burnout, etc.) and hypoarousal-driven aggressiveness (characteristic mainly to antisocial personality disorder and its childhood antecedent conduct disorder). Findings obtained with these models suggest that hyperarousal-driven aggressiveness has at its roots an excessive acute glucocorticoid stress response (and probably an exaggerated response of other stress-related systems), whereas chronic hypoarousal-associated aggressiveness is due to glucocorticoid deficits that affect brain function on the long term. In hypoarousal-driven aggressiveness, serotonergic neurotransmission appears to lose its impact on aggression (which it has in normal aggression), certain prefrontal neurons are weakly activated, whereas the central amygdala (no, or weakly involved in the control of normal aggression) acquires important roles. We suggest that the specific study of abnormal aspects of aggressive behavior would lead to important developments in understanding the specific mechanisms underlying different forms of aggression, and may ultimately lead to the development of better treatment approaches.