School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff CF10 3AT, United Kingdom; email:
Department of Clinical Neurodevelopmental Studies, Leiden University, 2333 AK Leiden, The Netherlands.
Annu Rev Psychol. 2022 Jan 4;73:353-377. doi: 10.1146/annurev-psych-052621-045243. Epub 2021 Sep 29.
Early-onset disruptive, aggressive, and antisocial behavior is persistent, can become increasingly serious as children grow older, and is difficult to change. In 2007, our group proposed a theoretical model highlighting the interplay between neurobiological deficits and cognitive and emotional functioning as mediators of the link between genetic influences and early social adversity, on the one hand, and antisocial behavioral problems in childhood, on the other. In this article, we review the post-2007 evidence relevant to this model. We discuss research on genetics/epigenetics, stress/arousal regulation, and emotion and executive functioning in support of the argument that antisocial children, especially those who persist in engaging in antisocial behavior as they grow older, have a range of neuropsychological characteristics that are important in explaining individual differences in the severity and persistence of antisocial behavior. Current clinical practice tends not to acknowledge these individual neuropsychological risk factors or to target them for intervention. We argue that aggressive and disruptive behavior in childhood should be regarded as a neurodevelopmental problem and that intervening at the level of mediating neuropsychological processes represents a promising way forward in tackling these serious behavioral problems.
早发性破坏性行为、攻击性和反社会行为具有持续性，随着儿童年龄的增长可能会变得愈发严重，且难以改变。2007 年，我们的团队提出了一个理论模型，重点强调神经生物学缺陷与认知和情绪功能之间的相互作用，作为遗传影响和早期社会逆境与儿童期反社会行为问题之间联系的中介。在本文中，我们回顾了该模型相关的 2007 年后的证据。我们讨论了遗传学/表观遗传学、应激/唤醒调节以及情绪和执行功能方面的研究，以支持这样一种论点，即反社会的儿童，尤其是那些随着年龄的增长而持续从事反社会行为的儿童，具有一系列神经心理学特征，这些特征对于解释反社会行为的严重程度和持续性的个体差异非常重要。当前的临床实践往往没有认识到这些个体神经心理学风险因素，也没有针对这些因素进行干预。我们认为，儿童时期的攻击和破坏性行为应被视为一种神经发育问题，干预中介神经心理学过程是解决这些严重行为问题的一个有前途的方法。
