Neurobiological Substrates of Aggression and Violence in Male Delinquents:a Neuroelectrophysiological Study

Objective:To explore some neuroelectrophysiological bases underlying the aggression and violence in male delinquents. Methods:47 male delinquents with official records of aggressive and violent violation and 41 normal controls were examined by resting EEG, brain evoked potentials. Results:No EEG abnormality was detected in the two groups. Compared with the normals, the male delinquents displayed prolonged V latency in auditory brainstem evoked potentials (5.8±0.1/5.5±0.1, F=9.803, P0.01) reflecting more filtering out of peripheral auditory stimuli, increased wave III amplitude (3.5±0.1/3.8±0.1,F=4.711, P0.01), shorter N1 latency (104.4±6.1/124.4±6.6,F=4.386, P0.01) and increased P2 amplitude in somatosensory evoked potentials (5.6±0.4/3.9±0.4,F=7.222, P0.01) indicating enhanced cortical response to somatosensory stimuli. Apart from these findings, they also displayed prolonged P3 latency of target stimuli in auditory P300 during a standard oddball task implicating less efficient cognitive functioning. EEG was highly correlated with evoked potentials.Conclusions:Decreased cortex arousal may partly underlie the neurobiological genesis of aggressive and violent behavior in male delinquents.