ABSTRACT
There are long-standing viewpoints that impulsive and violent behavior may stem from brain dysfunction or damage secondary to head injury, disease, or toxic chemical substances. This research has aimed to examine the relationship between potentially toxic metals and aberrant behavior, especially violent activity, through the nonintrusive technique of hair analysis for trace elements. In an initial study, phase I, it was not possible to replicate findings of others who reported high levels of lead, cadmium, and copper in violent offenders. However, high levels of manganese were found in prison versus control groups. In phase II, the possibility of artifactual results arising from prison cooking utensils was controlled for by sampling early after incarceration. Phase III was included to substantiate the initial post hoc findings in an additional jail population. In both latter phases, significantly elevated manganese levels were found in the hair of violent versus nonviolent subjects (P less than .0001). A review of the effects of manganese at deficient and toxic levels does not provide a simple answer as to why manganese levels are elevated in the hair of individuals who have been incarcerated for violent behavior. Our study does not implicate the prison environment or soaps and shampoos used in California prisons. Other factors, such as alcohol, dietary, or psychosocial factors, might influence manganese levels in hair, or any of these factors might function in combination with mild manganese toxicity to contribute to aberrant behavior.
Subject(s)
Antisocial Personality Disorder/diagnosis , Hair/chemistry , Neurocognitive Disorders/diagnosis , Substance-Related Disorders/diagnosis , Trace Elements/analysis , Adult , Aged , Antisocial Personality Disorder/chemically induced , Humans , Male , Manganese/analysis , Middle Aged , Neurocognitive Disorders/psychology , Prisons , Reference Values , Risk Factors , Substance-Related Disorders/psychologyABSTRACT
A system of particles will consist of 2n particles at time n, n = 0,1,2,...; each of the particles is either blue or white. At time 0 the particle is white. In the time interval (0,1) this particle mutates to blue with probability p. At time 1 the particle splits into two particles of the same color. At any time n greater than or equal to 1 the 2n particles act independently of each other and of their ancestral histories; during the time interval (n, n + 1) each white particle mutates to blue with probability p, and each blue particle mutates to white with probability alpha. The problem is to find the distribution of the number, Xn, of blue particles at time n - 0 when n is large and p = pn and alpha = alpha n are small.
