Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-tj2md Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T10:31:45.869Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Main effects or transactions in the neuropsychology of conduct disorder? Commentary on “The neuropsychology of conduct disorder”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 October 2008

Bruce F. Pennington  and
Loisa Bennetto
Bruce F. Pennington*
Affiliation:
University of Denver
Loisa Bennetto
Affiliation:
University of Denver
*
Address reprint requests to: Bruce F. Pennington, University of Denver, Department of Psychology, 2155 S. Race Street, Denver, CO 80208.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this commentary, we (a) discuss logical and empirical limits on the transactional model in accounting for the etiology of any developmental psychopathology, including conduct disorder (CD), and (b) review evidence bearing on whether or not frontal lobe lesions can directly produce CD behavior. Logically, transactions can both decrease and increase phenotypic variance; moreover, there is a mathematical limit (50%) to the amount of variance for which they can account. Empirically, documenting a transactional effect requires (a) that we have unconfounded measures of a child's biotype and social environment, (b) that the biotype and social environment are correlated, and (c) that we have a design (such as an adoption design) that is capable of separating the contribution of this correlation to outcome variance from the main effects of either biotype or social environment considered separately. Given these limits, we should also look for main effects in the etiology of CD. We argue that early damage or dysfunction in the frontal lobes may be one such plausible main effect on CD.

Type
Articles
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 5 , Issue 1-2 , Winter-Spring 1993 , pp. 153 - 164
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aman, C. J. (1992). Cognitive neuropsychological correlates in boys with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Denver, CO.Google Scholar
Benton, A. (1991). Prefrontal injury and behavior in children. Developmental Neuropsychology, 7(3), 275–281.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Case, R., Kurland, D. M., & Goldberg, J. (1982). Operational efficiency and the growth of short-term memory span. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 33, 386–404.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, J. D., & Servan-Schreiber, D. (1992). Context, cortex, and dopamine: A connectionist approach to behavior and biology in schizophrenia. Psychological Review, 99, 45–77.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Damasio, A. R., Tranel, D., & Damasio, H. (1991). So matic markers and the guidance of behavior: Theory and preliminary testing. In Levin, H. S., Eisenberg, H. M., & Benton, A. L. (Eds.), Frontal lobe function and dysfunction (pp. 217–229). New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daneman, M., & Carpenter, P. A. (1980). Individual differences in working memory and reading. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 19, 450–466.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diamond, A. (1991). Guidelines for the study of brain-behavior relationships during development. In Levin, H. S., Eisenberg, H. M., & Benton, A. L. (Eds.), Frontal lobe function and dysfunction (pp. 339–378). New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eslinger, P. J., & Damasio, A. R. (1985). Severe disturbance of higher cognition after bilateral frontal lobe ablation: Patient EVR. Neurology, 35, 1731–1741.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gilger, J. W., Pennington, B. F., & DeFries, J. C. (in press). A twin study of the etiology of comorbidity: Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and dyslexia. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 31, 343–348.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gillis, J. J., Gilger, J. W., Pennington, B. F., & DeFries, J. C. (1992). Attention deficit disorder in reading-disabled twins: Evidence for a genetic etiology. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 20, 303–315.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Grattan, L. M., & Eslinger, D. J. (1991). Frontal lobe damage in children and adults: A comparative review. Developmental Neuropsychology, 7, 283–326.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guitton, D., Buchtel, H. A., & Douglas, R. M. (1985). Frontal lobe lesions in man cause difficulties in suppressing reflexive glances and in generating goal-directed saccades. Experimental Brain Research, 58, 455–472.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Levin, H. S., Culhane, K. A., Hartmann, J., Evankovich, K., Mattson, A. J., Harward, H., Ringholz, G., Ewing-Cobbs, L., & Fletcher, J. M. (1991). Developmental changes in performance on tests of purported frontal lobe functioning. Developmental Neuropsychology, 7, 377–395.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loeber, R. (1991). Questions and advances in the study of developmental pathways. In Cicchetti, D. (Ed.), Rochester Symposium on Developmental Psychopathology (Vol. III, pp. 97–116). New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Marlowe, W. B. (1989). Consequences of frontal lobe injury in the developing child. Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, 12, 105.Google Scholar
McEvoy, R., Rogers, S., & Pennington, B. F. (in press). Executive function and social communication deficits in young, autistic children. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.Google Scholar
Moffitt, T. E. (1993). The neuropsychology of conduct disorder. Development and Psychopathology, 5, 135–151.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Norman, R. M. (1945). Thalamic degeneration following bilateral premotor frontal lobe atrophy of the Strumpell type. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry, 8, 52–56.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pennington, B. F. (in press). The working memory function of the prefrontal cortices: Implications for developmental and individual differences in cognition. In Haith, M. M., Benson, J., Roberts, R., & Pennington, B. F. (Eds.), Future oriented processes in development. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Pennington, B. F., & Ozonoff, S. (1991). A neuroscientific perspective on continuity and discontinuity in developmental psychopathology. In Cicchetti, D. & Toth, S. L. (Eds.), Rochester Symposium on Developmental Psychopathology (Vol. III, pp. 117–159). Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press.Google Scholar
Plomin, R. (1986). Development, genetics, and psychology. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Plomin, R., DeFries, J. C., & Loehlin, J. C. (1977). Genotype–environment interaction and correlation in the analysis of human behavior. Psychological Bulletin, 84, 309–322.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Price, B. H., Daffner, K. R., Stowe, R. M., & Mesulam, M. M. (1990). The comportmental learning disabilities of early frontal lobe damage. Brain, 113, 1383–1393.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Reiss, D., Plomin, R., & Hetherington, E. M. (1991). Genetics and psychiatry: An unheralded window on the environment. American Journal of Psychiatry, 148, 283–291.Google ScholarPubMed
Russell, W. R. (1959). Brain, memory, learning. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Sameroff, A., & Chandler, M. (1975). Reproductive risk and the continuum of caretaker casualty. In Horowitz, F., Hetherington, M., Scarr-Salapatek, S., & Sigel, G. (Eds.), Review of Child Development Research (Vol. 4, pp. 187–244). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Schachar, R., & Logan, G. D. (1990). Impulsivity and inhibitory control in normal development and childhood psychopathology. Developmental Psychology, 26, 710–720.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shaffer, D., Chadwick, O., & Rutter, M. (1975). Psychiatric outcome of localized lead injury in children. In Porter, R. & Fitzsimons, D. W. (Eds.), Outcome of severe damage to the central nervous system (pp. 191–213). CIBA Foundation Symposium No. 34. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Shallice, T., & Burgess, P. (1991). Higher-order cognitive impairments and frontal lobe lesions in man. In Levin, H. S., Eisenberg, H. M., & Benton, A. L. (Eds.), Frontal lobe function and dysfunction (pp. 125–138). New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Siegel, L. S., & Ryan, E. B. (1989). The development of working memory in normally achieving and subtypes of learning disabled children. Child Development, 60, 973–980.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Stelling, M. W., McKay, S. E., Carr, W. A., Walsh, J. W., & Baumann, R. J. (1986). Frontal lobe lesions and cognitive function in craniopharyngioma survivors. American Journal of Diseases in Children, 140, 710–714.Google ScholarPubMed
Stevenson, J. (1992). Evidence for a genetic etiology in hyperactivity in children. Behavior Genetics, 22, 337–344.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Thompson, G. N. (1970). Cerebral lesions simulating schizophrenia: Three case reports. Biological Psychiatry, 2, 59–64.Google ScholarPubMed
Waddington, C. (1957). The strategy of the genes. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Welsh, M. C., Pennington, B. F., & Groisser, D. B. (1991). A normative-developmental study of executive function: A window of prefrontal function in children. Developmental Neuropsychology, 7, 131–149.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, J. L., Moffitt, T. E., Caspi, A., Needles, D. J., & Stouthamer-Loeber, M. (in press). Measuring impulsivity and examining its relationship to delinquency. Journal of Abnormal Psychology.Google Scholar