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2-014 - Charting the Biological Underpinnings of the Development of Maladaptive Aggression

Fri, March 22, 8:00 to 9:30am, Baltimore Convention Center, Floor: Level 3, Room 321

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Though some amount of aggression can be normative, aggression that is out of proportion to its cause can harm the developmental trajectory of the perpetrator and victim. Aggression emerges early in life and can either be: instrumental and goal-directed to achieve the aggressor’s goals; or reactive and conducted in response to frustration, social provocation or threat. Moreover, youth and adults with the emotional features of psychopathy (reduced empathy and guilt) are at particular risk for instrumental aggression, whereas those prone to anger or irritability are at particular risk for reactive aggression.
The goal of this symposium is to consider, via neuroimaging, the biological underpinnings of aggression across developmental periods in a series of relatively large studies (N>500 over the four studies) with a diversity of tasks and participants. One study examines psychopathic traits during emerging adulthood in an at-risk sample. Another focuses on irritability in adolescents in a treatment context. A third uses structural MRI on an under-studied population of children. The final examines aggression in a well-sampled study in the community with enrichment for adverse environments. These studies use a variety of fMRI tasks and analytic strategies from nuanced examination of reactivity to emotional faces to functional connectivity studies to novel paradigms examining treatment outcomes to structural MRI in children. These studies collectively test existing theories of the neuroetiology of aggression, conduct problems, and callous-unemotional traits. Collectively they highlight cutting-edge methods in the field from divergent perspectives and include junior and senior experts in the field.

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