Impulsive violent criminals and predictive violent criminals: an event-related potential P300 study / 中华行为医学与脑科学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To compare the amplitude and latency of event-related potential P300 be-tween impulsive and predictive violent criminals. Methods Twenty impulsive violent criminals and twenty predictive violent criminals were recruited from one prison in Wenzhou city. Twenty matched healthy controls from community were recruited. Criminals in both groups were excluded from violent crimes caused by mental disorders by judicial psychiatrists using DSM-IV axis I disorder clinical stereotyped interviews. Nicolet Bravo Brain Evoked Potentiometer (produced by Nicolet Company,USA) was used to detect the P300 components of the above three groups of subjects. Eysenck Impulsiveness Scale was used to assess the impulsiveness. Results The P300 amplitude of impulsive violent criminals was smaller than that of predictive violent crimi-nals( (4. 52±1. 14)μV vs (13. 88±2. 06)μV,t=17. 779,P<0. 01),but there was no significant difference of the P300 amplitude between predictive violent criminals and community enrolled controls ((13. 88±2. 06) μV vs (14. 01±1. 86)μV,t=0. 209,P=0. 835). The impulsivity scale score of impulsive violent criminals was highly negatively correlated with the amplitude of P300 (r=-0. 812,P=0. 002). There were no signifi-cant differences in the latency of P300 among impulsive violent criminals,predictive violent criminals and community enrolled controls group. And there was no significant correlation between the latency of P300 and the score of impulsivity scale (P>0. 05). Conclusion The P300 amplitude can aid in the differential diag-nosis of violent criminals with and without impulsive behavior.