Personality traits and negative affect mediate the relationship between cortical thickness of superior frontal cortex and aggressive behavior

•Aggressive behavior was related to cortical thickness of left superior frontal gyrus.•Partial mediation effect of negative affect, especially anger and sadness.•Full mediation effect of personality traits, especially agreeableness and neuroticism. Aggression reflects the psychological and physical...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Neuroscience letters 2020-01, Vol.718, p.134728-134728, Article 134728
Main Authors: Zhu, Xingxing, Wang, Kangcheng, Cao, Aihua, Zhang, Yong, Qiu, Jiang
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aggression - psychology
Aggressive behavior
Anger
Cerebral Cortex - pathology
Cortical thickness
Female
Frontal Lobe - pathology
Humans
Male
Negative affect
Neuroticism
Personality - physiology
Personality traits
Prefrontal Cortex - pathology
Superior frontal gyrus
Young Adult
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:•Aggressive behavior was related to cortical thickness of left superior frontal gyrus.•Partial mediation effect of negative affect, especially anger and sadness.•Full mediation effect of personality traits, especially agreeableness and neuroticism. Aggression reflects the psychological and physical behavior that perpetrator intends to harm victim. Initiation of aggression is influenced by the distal factors (e.g. personality) and proximate causes (e.g. affect) of perpetrator. However, few studies explored the brain structural basis of relationship between these traits and aggressive behavior. In this study, we first explored the association between cortical thickness and aggression in a large young adult sample from the Human Connectome Project. Results found aggressive behavior assessed by the Adult Self-Report was positively correlated with cortical thickness in left superior frontal gyrus (SFG), which was implicated in emotion regulation and executive function. Then, mediation analyses with distal and proximate factors separately showcased that the association between the left SFG thickness and aggressive behavior was partially mediated by negative affect (anger and sadness), and fully mediated by personality traits (agreeableness and neuroticism). Taken together, these experimental findings established dorsal prefrontal cortex as the key region in generating aggressive behavior, and gave a neutral explanation for why individuals with high negative affect and neuroticism exhibit more aggression. This study implicated the possible targeted brain region and behavioral intervention for such at-risk individuals initiating violence.
ISSN:0304-3940
1872-7972
DOI:10.1016/j.neulet.2019.134728