Cuban Neuroscience Center, CNEURO, Ave 25 y 158, Cubanacan, Apartado 12100, La Habana, Cuba.
Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2013 Dec;8(8):928-36. doi: 10.1093/scan/nss101. Epub 2012 Sep 5.
Amygdala structural and functional abnormalities have been associated to reactive aggression in previous studies. However, the possible linkage of these two types of anomalies has not been examined. We hypothesized that they would coincide in the same localizations, would be correlated in intensity and would be mediated by reactive aggression personality traits. Here violent (n = 25) and non-violent (n = 29) men were recruited on the basis of their reactive aggression. Callous-unemotional (CU) traits were also assessed. Gray matter concentration (gmC) and reactivity to fearful and neutral facial expressions were measured in dorsal and ventral amygdala partitions. The difference between responses to fearful and neutral facial expressions was calculated (F/N-difference). Violent individuals exhibited a smaller F/N-difference and gmC in the left dorsal amygdala, where a significant coincidence was found in a conjunction analysis. Moreover, the left amygdala F/N-difference and gmC were correlated to each other, an effect mediated by reactive aggression but not by CU. The F/N-difference was caused by increased reactivity to neutral faces. This suggests that anatomical anomalies within local circuitry (and not only altered input) may underlie the amygdala hyper-reactivity to social signals which is characteristic of reactive aggression.
杏仁核的结构和功能异常与先前研究中的反应性攻击有关。然而，这两种异常类型之间的可能联系尚未被研究。我们假设它们会在同一部位重合，在强度上相关，并由反应性攻击的人格特质介导。在这里，根据他们的反应性攻击，招募了 25 名暴力男性和 29 名非暴力男性。还评估了无情（CU）特征。在背侧和腹侧杏仁核分区中测量了灰质浓度（gmC）和对恐惧和中性面部表情的反应性。计算了对恐惧和中性面部表情的反应之间的差异（F/N 差异）。暴力个体在左背侧杏仁核中表现出较小的 F/N 差异和 gmC，在联合分析中发现了一个显著的重合。此外，左杏仁核的 F/N 差异和 gmC 彼此相关，这种效应由反应性攻击介导，但不受 CU 影响。F/N 差异是由对中性面孔的反应性增加引起的。这表明，局部回路内的解剖异常（不仅仅是输入改变）可能是反应性攻击特征的杏仁核对社会信号过度反应的基础。
