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Strong limbic and weak frontal activation to aggressive stimuli in spouse abusers

Molecular Psychiatry volume 13, pages 655–656 (2008)Cite this article

Spouse abuse, listed as a V code (V61.12) in DSM-IV, has been viewed almost exclusively from a social perspective. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we observed that batterers, relative to controls, show more limbic and less frontal activation to aggressive stimuli. No group differences in brain activation to stimuli lacking an affective component were observed. The findings suggest that inadequate prefrontal and anterior cingulate resources to exercise top-down regulatory control over the excessive limbic activation to aggressive stimuli may in part explain the functional brain abnormality of batterers.

As the predominating view of spouse abuse is that it constitutes a rational act aimed at regulating conflict,1 the possibility exists that it may have a neurobiological component.2 The literature suggests that emotional regulation is subserved by a network of brain regions including the prefrontal cortex, amygdala, hippocampus, hypothalamus, anterior cingulate cortex, insular cortex, ventral striatum and other interconnected regions. The suppression of negative emotion is achieved via an inhibitory connection between the frontal and limbic regions.3, 4 Therefore, any functional or structural abnormalities in one or more of these regions or their interconnections would be expected to increase the propensity for impulsive aggression due to the unsuccessful suppression of negative emotion. In accordance with this line of thought, one neurophysiological model of spouse abuse is that a combination of subcortical hyper-reactivity to negative affect stimuli combined with insufficient prefrontal regulatory resources results in emotion dysregulation and a predisposition to reactive aggression. To test this hypothesis, 10 male batterers and 13 male matched controls performed the cognitive5 and emotional6 Stroop tasks carried out in a block design while having their brain activities monitored by a 3T Philips Achieva scanner. The behavioral data showed that, on the emotional Stroop task, batterers were relatively slower in responding to negative affect stimuli compared to neutral stimuli, F(1,21)=5.28, P=0.03, η2=0.20. However, no significant group-by-condition interaction was observed for the cognitive Stroop task, F(1,21)=0.75, P=0.40, η2=0.04.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Neuropsychology, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

    T M C Lee & S C Chan

  2. Laboratory of Cognitive Affective Neuroscience, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

    T M C Lee & S C Chan

  3. The State Key Laboratory of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

    T M C Lee

  4. Departments of Criminology, Psychiatry, and Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, PA, USA

    A Raine

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  1. T M C Lee
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  2. S C Chan
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  3. A Raine
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Correspondence to T M C Lee or A Raine.

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Lee, T., Chan, S. & Raine, A. Strong limbic and weak frontal activation to aggressive stimuli in spouse abusers. Mol Psychiatry 13, 655–656 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/mp.2008.46

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