P300 to emotionally relevant stimuli as an indicator of aggression levels
✍ Scribed by Susan M. Surguy; Alyson J. Bond
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2006
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 152 KB
- Volume
- 32
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0096-140X
- DOI
- 10.1002/ab.20124
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Severe acts of aggression have been associated with prefrontal dysfunction. Less severe aggression may be associated with more subtle abnormalities. P300 event-related potentials were recorded from 32 healthy volunteers during a novel modified oddball task. The task required participants to respond only to rare, food words (targets), which occurred randomly among neutral words. Aggressive words appeared randomly with the same frequency as the target words. A median split divided subjects into high-and low-aggression groups based on their scores on the Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory. The groups did not differ in their responses to the target words. Participants with higher aggression scores had lowered responses to the aggressive words at the frontal relative to the other electrode sites. Cognitive processing of aggressive stimuli was less efficient at frontal sites in individuals who reported higher levels of aggression. This result extends work showing frontal P300 decrements in more severe aggressive groups, using simple oddball tasks.