Carlisi Christina O, Moffitt Terrie E, Knodt Annchen R, Harrington HonaLee, Langevin Stephanie, Ireland David, Melzer Tracy R, Poulton Richie, Ramrakha Sandhya, Caspi Avshalom, Hariri Ahmad R, Viding Essi
Division of Psychology and Language Sciences, University College London, London, UK.
Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA.
Dev Psychopathol. 2022 Dec;34(5):2012-2022. doi: 10.1017/S0954579421000377. Epub 2021 Oct 18.
Neuropsychological evidence supports the developmental taxonomy theory of antisocial behavior, suggesting that abnormal brain development distinguishes life-course-persistent from adolescence-limited antisocial behavior. Recent neuroimaging work confirmed that prospectively-measured life-course-persistent antisocial behavior is associated with differences in cortical brain structure. Whether this extends to subcortical brain structures remains uninvestigated. This study compared subcortical gray-matter volumes between 672 members of the Dunedin Study previously defined as exhibiting life-course-persistent, adolescence-limited or low-level antisocial behavior based on repeated assessments at ages 7-26 years. Gray-matter volumes of 10 subcortical structures were compared across groups. The life-course-persistent group had lower volumes of amygdala, brain stem, cerebellum, hippocampus, pallidum, thalamus, and ventral diencephalon compared to the low-antisocial group. Differences between life-course-persistent and adolescence-limited individuals were comparable in effect size to differences between life-course-persistent and low-antisocial individuals, but were not statistically significant due to less statistical power. Gray-matter volumes in adolescence-limited individuals were near the norm in this population-representative cohort and similar to volumes in low-antisocial individuals. Although this study could not establish causal links between brain volume and antisocial behavior, it constitutes new biological evidence that all people with antisocial behavior are not the same, supporting a need for greater developmental and diagnostic precision in clinical, forensic, and policy-based interventions.
神经心理学证据支持反社会行为的发展分类理论，表明大脑发育异常可区分终生持续型与青少年局限型反社会行为。近期的神经影像学研究证实，前瞻性测量的终生持续型反社会行为与大脑皮质结构差异有关。这是否也适用于皮质下脑结构仍未得到研究。本研究比较了达尼丁研究中672名成员的皮质下灰质体积，这些成员此前根据7至26岁的多次评估被定义为表现出终生持续型、青少年局限型或低水平反社会行为。对10个皮质下结构的灰质体积进行了组间比较。与低反社会行为组相比，终生持续型组的杏仁核、脑干、小脑、海马体、苍白球、丘脑和腹侧间脑体积较小。终生持续型与青少年局限型个体之间的差异在效应大小上与终生持续型与低反社会行为个体之间的差异相当，但由于统计效力较低，差异无统计学意义。在这个具有人群代表性的队列中，青少年局限型个体的灰质体积接近正常水平，与低反社会行为个体的体积相似。尽管本研究无法确定脑容量与反社会行为之间的因果关系，但它构成了新的生物学证据，表明所有反社会行为的人并不相同，支持在临床、法医和基于政策的干预中需要更高的发展和诊断精度。
