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International Journal of Environmental... Jan 2022Intimate partner violence (IPV) has serious consequences, particularly during high-risk periods such as pregnancy, which poses a significant risk to maternal mental...
BACKGROUND
Intimate partner violence (IPV) has serious consequences, particularly during high-risk periods such as pregnancy, which poses a significant risk to maternal mental health. However, it is unclear whether IPV presents a broad risk for psychopathology or is specific to distinct diagnoses or symptom dimensions (e.g., panic, social anxiety). Further, the relative impact of physical versus psychological aggression remains unclear.
METHODS
One hundred and fifty-nine pregnant couples completed surveys assessing psychological and physical intimate partner aggression unfolding in the couple relationship, as well as a range of internalizing symptoms.
RESULTS
Psychological and physical aggression were each associated with broad negative affectivity, which underlies mood and anxiety disorders; however, only psychological aggression demonstrated a unique association. Further, for pregnant women, aggression was uniquely associated with several symptom dimensions characteristic of PTSD. In contrast, men demonstrated a relatively heterogeneous symptom presentation in relation to aggression.
CONCLUSION
The present study identifies unique symptom manifestations associated with IPV for couples navigating pregnancy and suggests psychological aggression can be more detrimental to mental health than physical aggression. To promote maternal perinatal mental health, clinicians should screen for covert forms of psychological aggression during pregnancy (e.g., raised voices, insults), trauma-related distress, and symptom elevations in women and their partners.
Topics: Aggression; Anxiety Disorders; Female; Humans; Intimate Partner Violence; Male; Pregnancy; Pregnant Women; Sexual Partners
PubMed: 35162685
DOI: 10.3390/ijerph19031662 -
Translational Psychiatry Feb 2022Personality traits, especially neuroticism, strongly predict psychopathology. The domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris Linnaeus, 1758) is used as a natural model for...
Personality traits, especially neuroticism, strongly predict psychopathology. The domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris Linnaeus, 1758) is used as a natural model for psychiatric disorders, but the similarity between dog and human personality and the association between dog personality and unwanted behavioral traits, such as fearfulness, aggressiveness, and impulsivity/inattention, remain unknown. This study utilized structural equation modeling (SEM) with survey data of 11,360 dogs to examine the associations and correlations between seven personality and ten unwanted behavioral traits. Personality traits included insecurity, energy, training focus, aggressiveness/dominance, human sociability, dog sociability, and perseverance. Unwanted behavioral traits included fearfulness, noise sensitivity, fear of surfaces/heights, separation anxiety, barking, stranger-directed aggression, owner-directed aggression, dog-directed aggression, hyperactivity/impulsivity, and inattention. We first fitted confirmatory factor models for the unwanted behavioral traits and the best model grouped unwanted behaviors into four latent traits: fear-related behavior, fear-aggression, aggression, and impulsivity/inattention and used this structure in the subsequent SEM model. Especially, insecurity, which resembles the human neuroticism trait, was strongly associated with unwanted behavior, paralleling the association between neuroticism and psychopathology. Similarly, training focus, resembling conscientiousness, was negatively related to impulsivity/inattention, and aggressiveness/dominance was associated with aggressive behaviors, resembling associations of conscientiousness and agreeableness with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and aggression-related psychopathology, respectively. These results indicate that dog personality traits resemble human personality traits, suggesting that their neurological and genetic basis may also be similar and making the dog a suitable animal model for human behavior and psychiatric disorders.
Topics: Aggression; Animals; Behavior, Animal; Dogs; Humans; Impulsive Behavior; Personality; Problem Behavior
PubMed: 35197456
DOI: 10.1038/s41398-022-01841-0 -
Nature Neuroscience May 2023Aggression is costly and requires tight regulation. Here we identify the projection from estrogen receptor alpha-expressing cells in the caudal part of the medial...
Aggression is costly and requires tight regulation. Here we identify the projection from estrogen receptor alpha-expressing cells in the caudal part of the medial preoptic area (cMPOA) to the ventrolateral part of the ventromedial hypothalamus (VMHvl) as an essential pathway for modulating aggression in male mice. cMPOA cells increase activity mainly during male-male interaction, which differs from the female-biased response pattern of rostral MPOA (rMPOA) cells. Notably, cMPOA cell responses to male opponents correlated with the opponents' fighting capability, which mice could estimate based on physical traits or learn through physical combats. Inactivating the cMPOA-VMHvl pathway increased aggression, whereas activating the pathway suppressed natural intermale aggression. Thus, cMPOA is a key population for encoding opponents' fighting capability-information that could be used to prevent animals from engaging in disadvantageous conflicts with superior opponents by suppressing the activity of VMHvl cells essential for attack behaviors.
Topics: Mice; Male; Female; Animals; Aggression; Hypothalamus; Preoptic Area; Learning
PubMed: 37037956
DOI: 10.1038/s41593-023-01297-5 -
Journal of Injury & Violence Research Jul 2019Aggression is the most significant psychopathological risk factor. It is a multifaceted construct and can affect students' social, mental and physical health. The...
BACKGROUND
Aggression is the most significant psychopathological risk factor. It is a multifaceted construct and can affect students' social, mental and physical health. The present study was conducted to investigate factors associated with aggression among elementary school girls and boys using the theoretical framework of Social Cognitive Theory in Kermanshah city, Iran.
METHODS
The cross-sectional study was conducted on 900 students, including 445 girls and 455 boys, 563 parents and 104 elementary school teachers in the fourth, fifth and sixth educational grades in Kermanshah city in 2018. The proportionate stratified random sampling was used. The Adolescent Peer Relations Instrument (APRI) was used to measure aggression. To measure the variables of social cognitive theory, a researcher-made questionnaire was used. Data analysis was conducted using descriptive and inferential statistics via the SPSS software.
RESULTS
It was showed that 29% and 10% of the students had moderate and high levels of aggression, respectively. Also, 30.6% of them were moderate victims and 45.6% were intense victims. Self-efficacy (p less than 0.001), perceived social norms (p=0.011), observational learning (p less than 0.001), outcome expectations (p=0.027), outcome expectancies (p=0.028) and per-ceived situational (p less than 0.001) were reported as the significant predictors of aggressive behaviors in the students based on the Social Cognitive Theory constructs. In total, they explained for 37.3% of changes in aggressive behaviors. Parents' knowledge (p=0.005), parents' attitude (p=0.012), teachers' attitude (p less than 0.001), and teachers' self-efficacy (p=0.021) had statistically significant relationships with aggression in the students.
CONCLUSIONS
Aggression among children and adolescents is getting alarmingly prevalent. The Social Cogni-tive Theory is the appropriate framework for the prediction of aggression behaviors in children and adolescents. Therefore, designing and implementing educational interventions based on this theory can help with the management of aggression in children and adolescents.
Topics: Adolescent; Aggression; Child; Cross-Sectional Studies; Faculty; Female; Humans; Iran; Male; Parents; Peer Group; Risk Factors
PubMed: 30982055
DOI: 10.5249/jivr.v11i2.1102 -
BMC Psychology Apr 2022The idea that attachment styles can affect the level of anger in an individual educes a reason why people develop anger issues and behavioral problems in adolescence...
BACKGROUND
The idea that attachment styles can affect the level of anger in an individual educes a reason why people develop anger issues and behavioral problems in adolescence that escalate into adulthood. Lebanon suffers from a shortage of data pertaining to insecure attachment styles and the affective and cognitive aspects of anger and behavioral anger expression among the Lebanese youth population. This study aimed to investigate the association between attachment dimensions and anger expression (trait anger, hostility, physical aggression, and verbal aggression) among a sample of Lebanese adolescent participants.
METHODS
This cross-sectional study was performed between January and May 2019 among 1810 Lebanese high-school students aged 12-18 and used two validated measures, the Adolescent-Relationship Questionnaire (A-RQ) and The Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire (BPAQ). The A-RQ assessed attachment behaviors, while the BPAQ evaluated aggression.
RESULTS
Higher fearful and dismissing attachment styles, and higher physical activity index were significantly associated with higher physical and verbal aggression. A higher fearful attachment style was significantly associated with more anger. A higher secure attachment style was significantly associated with less anger. Higher preoccupied and dismissing attachment styles were significantly associated with higher hostility.
CONCLUSION
Our findings revealed a significant relationship between both insecure attachment dimensions and the tripartite model of anger expression. This study adds to the anger literature by providing a more informed understanding of how variations in anger expression are linked to the processing of interpersonal interactions, which are the hidden facets of attachment systems.
Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Aggression; Anger; Cross-Sectional Studies; Hostility; Humans; Surveys and Questionnaires
PubMed: 35449029
DOI: 10.1186/s40359-022-00813-9 -
BMC Biology May 2022Aggression is an adaptive behaviour that animals use to protect offspring, defend themselves and obtain resources. Zebrafish, like many other animals, are not able to...
BACKGROUND
Aggression is an adaptive behaviour that animals use to protect offspring, defend themselves and obtain resources. Zebrafish, like many other animals, are not able to recognize themselves in the mirror and typically respond to their own reflection with aggression. However, mirror aggression is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon, with some individuals displaying high levels of aggression against their mirror image, while others show none at all. In the current work, we have investigated the genetic basis of mirror aggression by using a classic forward genetics approach - selective breeding for high and low mirror aggression zebrafish (HAZ and LAZ).
RESULTS
We characterized AB wild-type zebrafish for their response to the mirror image. Both aggressive and non-aggressive fish were inbred over several generations. We found that HAZ were on average more aggressive than the corresponding LAZ across generations and that the most aggressive adult HAZ were less anxious than the least aggressive adult LAZ after prolonged selective breeding. RNAseq analysis of these fish revealed that hundreds of protein-encoding genes with important diverse biological functions such as arsenic metabolism (as3mt), cell migration (arl4ab), immune system activity (ptgr1), actin cytoskeletal remodelling (wdr1), corticogenesis (dgcr2), protein dephosphorylation (ublcp1), sialic acid metabolism (st6galnac3) and ketone body metabolism (aacs) were differentially expressed between HAZ and LAZ, suggesting a strong genetic contribution to this phenotype. DAVID pathway analysis showed that a number of diverse pathways are enriched in HAZ over LAZ including pathways related to immune function, oxidation-reduction processes and cell signalling. In addition, weighted gene co-expression network analysis (WGCNA) identified 12 modules of highly correlated genes that were significantly associated with aggression duration and/or experimental group.
CONCLUSIONS
The current study shows that selective breeding based of the mirror aggression phenotype induces strong, heritable changes in behaviour and gene expression within the brain of zebrafish suggesting a strong genetic basis for this behaviour. Our transcriptomic analysis of fish selectively bred for high and low levels of mirror aggression revealed specific transcriptomic signatures induced by selective breeding and mirror aggression and thus provides a large and novel resource of candidate genes for future study.
Topics: Aggression; Animals; Behavior, Animal; Gene Expression Profiling; Transcriptome; Zebrafish
PubMed: 35501893
DOI: 10.1186/s12915-022-01298-z -
Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience Sep 2019The main goal of this review is to consider the main forms of dysfunctional neurocognition seen in individuals with clinically significant psychopathic traits (ie,... (Review)
Review
The main goal of this review is to consider the main forms of dysfunctional neurocognition seen in individuals with clinically significant psychopathic traits (ie, reduced guilt/empathy and increased impulsive/antisocial behavior). A secondary goal is to examine the extent to which these forms of dysfunction are seen in both adults with psychopathic traits and adolescents with clinically significant antisocial behavior that may also involve callous-unemotional traits (reduced guilt/empathy). The two main forms of neurocognition considered are emotional responding (to distress/pain cues and emotional stimuli more generally) and reward-related processing. Highly related forms of neurocognition, the response to drug cues and moral judgments, are also discussed. It is concluded that dysfunction in emotional responsiveness and moral judgments confers risk for aggression across adolescence and into adulthood. However, reduced reward-related processing, including to drug cues, is only consistently found in adolescents with clinically significant antisocial behavior, not adults with psychopathy. .
Topics: Adolescent; Adolescent Behavior; Adult; Aggression; Antisocial Personality Disorder; Humans; Neurocognitive Disorders; Young Adult
PubMed: 31749653
DOI: 10.31887/DCNS.2019.21.3/rblair -
Annual Review of Neuroscience Jul 2023Rapid advances in the neural control of social behavior highlight the role of interconnected nodes engaged in differential information processing to generate behavior.... (Review)
Review
Rapid advances in the neural control of social behavior highlight the role of interconnected nodes engaged in differential information processing to generate behavior. Many innate social behaviors are essential to reproductive fitness and therefore fundamentally different in males and females. Programming these differences occurs early in development in mammals, following gonadal differentiation and copious androgen production by the fetal testis during a critical period. Early-life programming of social behavior and its adult manifestation are separate but yoked processes, yet how they are linked is unknown. This review seeks to highlight that gap by identifying four core mechanisms (epigenetics, cell death, circuit formation, and adult hormonal modulation) that could connect developmental changes to the adult behaviors of mating and aggression. We further propose that a unique social behavior, adolescent play, bridges the preweaning to the postpubertal brain by engaging the same neural networks underpinning adult reproductive and aggressive behaviors.
Topics: Male; Animals; Female; Social Behavior; Aggression; Brain; Sexual Behavior, Animal; Cognition; Mammals
PubMed: 37001242
DOI: 10.1146/annurev-neuro-121522-110856 -
Journal of Interpersonal Violence Jan 2023Pathological narcissism and borderline traits have been consistently associated with interpersonal aggression. Shame has been identified as an important trigger of...
Pathological narcissism and borderline traits have been consistently associated with interpersonal aggression. Shame has been identified as an important trigger of aggressive behaviors in individuals with pathological personality traits, especially for narcissistic vulnerability and borderline traits. This is in line with Kohut's theory on narcissistic rage, that is, aggression, anger, and destruction that act as a protection for a grandiose self. The present study aims to investigate the interrelations between pathological narcissism, borderline traits, shame, and trait aggression, concepts that are parts of the narcissistic rage phenomenon introduced by Kohut, using path models. A total of 399 participants completed self-report questionnaires assessing personality traits (narcissistic grandiosity and vulnerability, and borderline traits), shame, and aggression. Three path models including these variables were tested and compared to one another on fit indices. Results show that shame acts as a mediator between pathological traits (narcissistic vulnerability and borderline traits) and trait aggression, whereas the relationship between narcissistic grandiosity and aggression was direct (i.e., shame was not involved). Results expand the narcissistic rage theory by suggesting that it might represent an internalizing type of aggression that manifests in the context of narcissistic vulnerability and borderline traits, which is not the case for narcissistic grandiosity that exerts a direct effect on trait aggression.
Topics: Humans; Narcissism; Personality Disorders; Aggression; Shame; Anger
PubMed: 35334202
DOI: 10.1177/08862605221084746 -
Nature Communications Jul 2022The dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN) is known to control aggressive behavior in mice. Here, we found that glutamatergic projections from the lateral habenula (LHb) to the DRN...
The dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN) is known to control aggressive behavior in mice. Here, we found that glutamatergic projections from the lateral habenula (LHb) to the DRN were activated in male mice that experienced pre-exposure to a rival male mouse ("social instigation") resulting in heightened intermale aggression. Both chemogenetic and optogenetic suppression of the LHb-DRN projection blocked heightened aggression after social instigation in male mice. In contrast, inhibition of this pathway did not affect basal levels of aggressive behavior, suggesting that the activity of the LHb-DRN projection is not necessary for the expression of species-typical aggressive behavior, but required for the increase of aggressive behavior resulting from social instigation. Anatomical analysis showed that LHb neurons synapse on non-serotonergic DRN neurons that project to the ventral tegmental area (VTA), and optogenetic activation of the DRN-VTA projection increased aggressive behaviors. Our results demonstrate that the LHb glutamatergic inputs to the DRN promote aggressive arousal induced by social instigation, which contributes to aggressive behavior by activating VTA-projecting non-serotonergic DRN neurons as one of its potential targets.
Topics: Aggression; Animals; Arousal; Dorsal Raphe Nucleus; Habenula; Male; Mice; Neural Pathways; Neurons
PubMed: 35864121
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-31728-z