Understanding Brain Mechanisms of Reactive Aggression
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PERSONALITY DISORDERS (K. BERTSCH, SECTION EDITOR)
Understanding Brain Mechanisms of Reactive Aggression Katja Bertsch 1,2 & Julian Florange 1 & Sabine C. Herpertz 1 Accepted: 26 October 2020 # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Purpose of Review To review the current literature on biobehavioral mechanisms involved in reactive aggression in a transdiagnostic approach. Recent Findings Aggressive reactions are closely related to activations in the brain’s threat circuitry. They occur in response to social threat that is experienced as inescapable, which, in turn, facilitates angry approach rather than fearful avoidance. Provocation-induced aggression is strongly associated with anger and deficits in cognitive control including emotion regulation and inhibitory control. Furthermore, the brain’s reward system plays a particular role in anger-related, tit-for-tat-like retaliatory aggression in response to frustration. More research is needed to further disentangle specific brain responses to social threat, provocation, and frustration. Summary A better understanding of the psychological and neurobiological mechanisms involved in reactive aggression may pave the way for specific mechanism-based treatments, involving biological or psychotherapeutic approaches or a combination of the two. Keywords Social threat . Provocation . Frustration . Threat sensitivity . Cognitive control . Emotion regulation . Inhibitory control . Frustrative non-reward
Introduction Aggression is an evolutionarily highly conserved behavior directed toward another individual with the intent to cause harm [1]. Reactive aggression is commonly defined as a response to social threat, provocation, or frustration, and is strongly associated with anger [2, 3]. Since increased reactive aggression is found in various mental disorders, it might be better regarded and explained as a transdiagnostic phenomenon. Reactive aggression is related to the following biobehavioral mechanisms: increased threat sensitivity [4] and frustrative non-reward [5, 6] as activating conditions as well as poor cognitive control as a regulatory condition [4, 7]. This article is part of the Topical collection on Personality Disorders * Katja Bertsch [email protected] 1
Department of General Psychiatry, Center for Psychosocial Medicine, Medical Faculty, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg, Germany
2
Department of Psychology, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, Germany
Within the following three sections, we systematically summarize studies on reactive aggression from a transdiagnostic perspective by focusing on brain data that are associated with the three biobehavioral mechanisms of reactive aggression in healthy subjects and in clinical phenotypes associated with high reactive aggression. Since social threat, provocation, and frustration have been identified as the most important situational triggers for reactive aggression, we attempt to describe, and where possible disentangle, how the three biobehavioral mechanisms are related to these situations. However, it should be no
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