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Anger under control: neural correlates of frustration as a function of trait aggression.

ABSTRACT: Antisocial behavior and aggression are prominent symptoms in several psychiatric disorders including antisocial personality disorder. An established precursor to aggression is a frustrating event, which can elicit anger or exasperation, thereby prompting aggressive responses. While some studies have investigated the neural correlates of frustration and aggression, examination of their relation to trait aggression in healthy populations are rare. Based on a screening of 550 males, we formed two extreme groups, one including individuals reporting high (n=21) and one reporting low (n=18) trait aggression. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) at 3T, all participants were put through a frustration task comprising unsolvable anagrams of German nouns. Despite similar behavioral performance, males with high trait aggression reported higher ratings of negative affect and anger after the frustration task. Moreover, they showed relatively decreased activation in the frontal brain regions and the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) as well as relatively less amygdala activation in response to frustration. Our findings indicate distinct frontal and limbic processing mechanisms following frustration modulated by trait aggression. In response to a frustrating event, HA individuals show some of the personality characteristics and neural processing patterns observed in abnormally aggressive populations. Highlighting the impact of aggressive traits on the behavioral and neural responses to frustration in non-psychiatric extreme groups can facilitate further characterization of neural dysfunctions underlying psychiatric disorders that involve abnormal frustration processing and aggression.

SUBMITTER: Pawliczek CM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3799631 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Anger under control: neural correlates of frustration as a function of trait aggression.

Pawliczek Christina M CM Derntl Birgit B Kellermann Thilo T Gur Ruben C RC Schneider Frank F Habel Ute U

PloS one 20131018 10

Antisocial behavior and aggression are prominent symptoms in several psychiatric disorders including antisocial personality disorder. An established precursor to aggression is a frustrating event, which can elicit anger or exasperation, thereby prompting aggressive responses. While some studies have investigated the neural correlates of frustration and aggression, examination of their relation to trait aggression in healthy populations are rare. Based on a screening of 550 males, we formed two e ...[more]

PMID: 24205247

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Project description:Methamphetamine abuse is associated with high rates of aggression but few studies have addressed the contributing neurobiological factors.To quantify aggression, investigate function in the amygdala and prefrontal cortex, and assess relationships between brain function and behavior in methamphetamine-dependent individuals.In a case-control study, aggression and brain activation were compared between methamphetamine-dependent and control participants.Participants were recruited from the general community to an academic research center.Thirty-nine methamphetamine-dependent volunteers (16 women) who were abstinent for 7 to 10 days and 37 drug-free control volunteers (18 women) participated in the study; subsets completed self-report and behavioral measures. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was performed on 25 methamphetamine-dependent and 23 control participants.We measured self-reported and perpetrated aggression and self-reported alexithymia. Brain activation was assessed using fMRI during visual processing of facial affect (affect matching) and symbolic processing (affect labeling), the latter representing an incidental form of emotion regulation.Methamphetamine-dependent participants self-reported more aggression and alexithymia than control participants and escalated perpetrated aggression more following provocation. Alexithymia scores correlated with measures of aggression. During affect matching, fMRI showed no differences between groups in amygdala activation but found lower activation in methamphetamine-dependent than control participants in the bilateral ventral inferior frontal gyrus. During affect labeling, participants recruited the dorsal inferior frontal gyrus and exhibited decreased amygdala activity, consistent with successful emotion regulation; there was no group difference in this effect. The magnitude of decrease in amygdala activity during affect labeling correlated inversely with self-reported aggression in control participants and perpetrated aggression in all participants. Ventral inferior frontal gyrus activation correlated inversely with alexithymia in control participants.Contrary to the hypotheses, methamphetamine-dependent individuals may successfully regulate emotions through incidental means (affect labeling). Instead, low ventral inferior frontal gyrus activity may contribute to heightened aggression by limiting emotional insight.

Dataset Information

Anger under control: neural correlates of frustration as a function of trait aggression.

Publications

Anger under control: neural correlates of frustration as a function of trait aggression.

Similar Datasets

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