Personality assessment of offenders and mentally ill offenders

Background: Crime is a complex psychological, sociological and situational behaviour. Personality theories provide possible insights into the psychological aspects of crime. The primary assumption behind the personality theories is that crime and delinquency are related to the presence of some personality traits. Aims: To assess the personality dimensions of offenders, mentally ill offenders and to compare them with normal control population. Methods: A semi-structured interview consisting of Socio-demographic details, Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) and Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11) were used to assess the personality of offenders, mentally ill offenders and normal population. Results: Offenders with and without mental illness did not differ in their personality, but both the groups differed significantly with the personality of general population. The offenders were more impulsive compared to normal population in general and offenders with mental illness were scoring high on total BIS-11 score and on non-planning impulsivity score compared to normal offenders. Conclusion: Personality traits can predict the person’s vulnerability to commit an offence.

Autistic children exhibit distinct plasma amino acid profile.

In order to ascertain whether autistic children display characteristic metabolic signatures that are of diagnostic value, plasma amino acid analyses were carried out on a cohort of 138 autistic children and 138 normal controls using reverse-phase HPLC. Pre-column derivatization of amino acids with phenyl isothiocyanate forms phenyl thio-carbamate derivates that have a λmax of 254 nm, enabling their detection using photodiode array. Autistic children showed elevated levels of glutamic acid (120 ± 89 vs. 83 ± 35 mmol/L) and asparagine (85 ± 37 vs. 47 ± 19 mmol/L); lower levels of phenylalanine (45 ± 20 vs. 59 ± 18 mmol/L), tryptophan (24 ± 11 vs. 41 ± 16 mmol/L), methionine (22 ± 9 vs. 28 ± 9 mmol/L) and histidine (45 ± 21 vs. 58 ± 15 mmol/L). A low molar ratio of (tryptophan/large neutral amino acids) × 100 was observed in autism (5.4 vs 9.2), indicating lesser availability of tryptophan for neurotransmitter serotonin synthesis. To conclude, elevated levels of excitatory amino acids (glutamate and asparagine), decreased essential amino acids (phenylalanine, tryptophan and methionine) and decreased precursors of neurotransmitters (tyrosine and tryptophan) are the distinct characteristics of plasma amino acid profile of autistic children. Thus, such metabolic signatures might be useful tools for early diagnosis of autism.