Antisocial Personality Disorder

Gene-environment interplay is a general term that covers several divergent concepts with different meanings and different implications. In this review, we evaluate research evidence on four varieties of gene-environment interplay. First, we consider epigenetic mechanisms by which environmental influences alter the effects of genes. Second, we focus on variations in heritability according to environmental circumstances. Third, we discuss what is known about gene-environment correlations.

In recent years, the role of epigenetic phenomenon, such as methylation, in mediating vulnerability to behavioral illness has become increasingly appreciated. One prominent locus at which epigenetic phenomena are thought to be in play is the monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) locus. In order to examine the role of methylation at this locus, we performed quantitative methylation analysis across the promoter region of this gene in lymphoblast lines derived from 191 subjects participating in the Iowa Adoption Studies (IAS).

OBJECTIVE: To examine epigenetic processes linking childhood sex abuse to symptoms of antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) in adulthood and to investigate the possibility that the link between childhood sex abuse and deoxyribonucleic acid methylation at the 5HTT promoter might represent a pathway of long-term impact on symptoms of ASPD. METHOD: Deoxyribonucleic acid was prepared from lymphoblast cell lines derived from 155 female participants in the latest wave of the Iowa Adoptee Study.

Aggression, which comprises multi-faceted traits ranging from negative emotionality to antisocial behaviour, is influenced by an interaction of biological, psychological and social variables. Failure in social adjustment, aggressiveness and violence represent the most detrimental long-term outcome of neurodevelopmental disorders.

BACKGROUND: Antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) is characterised by elevated impulsive aggression and increased risk for criminal behaviour and incarceration. Deficient activity of the monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) gene is suggested to contribute to serotonergic system dysregulation strongly associated with impulsive aggression and antisocial criminality. AIMS: To elucidate the role of epigenetic processes in altered MAOA expression and serotonin regulation in a population of incarcerated offenders with ASPD compared with a healthy non-incarcerated control population.

"Positive health," defined as a state beyond the mere absence of disease, was used as a model to examine factors for enhancing health despite extreme trauma. The study examined the United States' longest detained American prisoners of war, those held in Vietnam in the 1960s through early 1970s. Positive health was measured using a physical and a psychological composite score for each individual, based on 9 physical and 9 psychological variables. Physical and psychological health was correlated with optimism obtained postrepatriation (circa 1973).

Freud saw war as the prevailing of death over love, this being a metapsychological concept whose roots lie in the dynamics of urges within the individual and civilisation in general. In his opinion, this dialectic tension could not be overcome. Reich noted that the analytic theory was in conflict with practice. Freud's premisses concerning the philosophy of civilisation and their implications have been taken up by Marcuse, who solves the conflict between the love-death urges by treating work as reduced to love or a game, in which death is merely the negative to be overcome.

Ever since Wechsler observed that the adolescent sociopath characteristically scored higher on the performance section of the Wechsler IQ scale relative to the verbal section, psychologists have been debating its meaning. This study examines the relationships between P-V discrepancy scores, love deprivation, and juvenile delinquency among a sample of juvenile probationers. P greater than V scores were significantly related to love deprivation and violent crimes.

This study sought to determine the combined effects of psychopathy, low intellectual functioning, and love deprivation on violent delinquency. Low-intellectual-functioning psychopaths were significantly more violent than were low or high-intellectual-functioning nonpsychopaths or high-intellectual-functioning psychopaths. Love deprivation was more strongly related to violence than was psychopathy/intellectual functioning, and severely love-deprived, low-intellectual-functioning psychopaths were the most violent.

The causes of therapist-patient sex are complex and multidetermined. Efforts to understand why psychotherapists transgress sexual boundaries are hampered by the lure of reductionism and oversimplification. Most of those who examine this issue would prefer to categorize all such therapists as "bad" and "corrupt" as a way of distancing themselves and disavowing any similarities between these therapists and themselves.