Does the Relationship between Age and Brain Structure Differ in Youth with Conduct Disorder?

Conduct disorder (CD) is characterised by persistent antisocial and aggressive behaviour and typically emerges in childhood or adolescence. Although several authors have proposed that CD is a neurodevelopmental disorder, very little evidence is available about brain development in this condition. Structural brain alterations have been observed in CD, and some indirect evidence for delayed brain maturation has been reported. However, no detailed analysis of age-related changes in brain structure in youth with CD has been conducted. Using cross-sectional MRI data, this study aimed to explore differences in brain maturation in youth with CD versus healthy controls to provide further understanding of the neurodevelopmental processes underlying CD. 291 CD cases (153 males) and 379 healthy controls (160 males) aged 9-18 years (Mage = 14.4) were selected from the European multisite FemNAT-CD study. Structural MRI scans were analysed using surface-based morphometry followed by application of the ENIGMA quality control protocols. An atlas-based approach was used to investigate group differences and test for group-by-age and group-by-age-by-sex interactions in cortical thickness, surface area and subcortical volumes. Relative to healthy controls, the CD group showed lower surface area across frontal, temporal and parietal regions as well as lower total surface area. No significant group-by-age or group-by-age-by-sex interactions were observed on any brain structure measure. These findings suggest that CD is associated with lower surface area across multiple cortical regions, but do not support the idea that CD is associated with delayed brain maturation, at least within the age bracket considered here.

Examining the propensity and nature of criminal risk behaviours in frontotemporal dementia syndromes and Alzheimer's disease.

INTRODUCTION: Some people with dementia develop changes in behaviour and cognition that may lead to interactions with police or the legal system. However, large, prospective case-control studies examining these behaviours are lacking. METHODS: One hundred and forty-four people with dementia and 53 controls completed the Misdemeanours and Transgressions Screener. RESULTS: Criminal risk behaviours were reported in: 65.6% of behavioural-variant frontotemporal dementia, 46.2% of right-lateralised semantic dementia, and 27.0% of Alzheimer's disease patients. In 19.1% of patients these behaviours led to contact with police or authority figures. Compared to controls, people with dementia showed higher rates of physical assault (p = 0.024), financial/professional recklessness (p = 0.009), and inappropriate behaviours (p  = 0.052). DISCUSSION: Criminal risk behaviours are common across dementia subtypes and may be one of the first clinical signs of frontotemporal dementia. Further research to understand how to balance risk minimisation with an individual's liberties as well as the inappropriate criminalisation of people with dementia is needed. Highlights: The Misdemeanours and Transgressions Screener is a new tool to assess criminal risk behaviours.Forty-seven percent of patients with dementia show criminal risk behaviour after dementia onset.Behaviours included verbal abuse, traffic violations, physical assault.New onset of criminal risk behaviours >50 years is a clinical sign for frontotemporal dementia.

'Interesting' or 'boring': Modifying the implicit association task to measure implicit fire interest in an adolescent community sample.

The efficacy of explicit measures in assessing fire interest is often compromised by social desirability biases, presenting a challenge for early intervention programs aimed at preventing firesetting behaviour. The current study aimed to validate a novel fire interest Implicit Association Task (IAT), as a more reliable measure of implicit fire interest in adolescents. An Australian community adolescent sample of 85 participants, aged 10-17 (M = 13.65, SD = 1.81), completed a series of questionnaires, and the novel fire interest IAT. Based on self-reports, participants were classified as firelighters (n = 52) or non-firelighters (n = 33). IAT outcomes revealed an inclination towards associating "fire" with "interesting." Notably, firelighters, compared to non-firelighters, performed significantly quicker during hypothesis-consistent trials of the IAT where fire-images were paired with interesting-words. Moreover, a weak correlation emerged between the speed of responses in these hypothesis-consistent IAT trials and self-reported fire interest. This investigation is one of the few that examined the efficacy of implicit measures of fire interest and is the first to do so using a modified IAT. With continued refinement, the fire interest IAT could be successfully used to assist with early intervention programs aimed at preventing child firesetting behaviour. PsychINFO Code: 3230.

Mental health in athletes: Does authentic leadership matter?

Recent research has attested to the prevalence of mental health issues in sport, and the need to identify factors that could promote athletes' mental health. In this study, we investigated: (a) whether authentic leadership is associated with athletes' mental health directly and indirectly via psychological capital and prosocial and antisocial behaviour experienced from one's teammates; and (b) whether the hypothesized model testing these relationships is the same in higher versus lower competitive level athletes. We examined two dimensions of mental health, namely positive mental health and mental illness. A total of 751 athletes (Mage = 22.92, SD = 8.53; 294 female) from a range of sports completed a multi-section questionnaire administered via an online survey. Path analysis showed that authentic leadership was positively related to positive mental health via psychological capital and prosocial behaviour and negatively linked to mental illness via psychological capital and antisocial behaviour. The effects of authentic leadership on positive mental health via prosocial teammate behaviour and subsequently psychological capital, and on mental illness via prosocial teammate behaviour, were stronger in higher compared to lower competitive level athletes. The findings suggest that by adopting an authentic leadership style coaches could strengthen athletes' positive mental health and protect them from mental illness. This may happen by increasing athletes' psychological capital and prosocial behaviour within the team and decreasing antisocial behaviour within the team.

Commentary: Early intervention for conduct problems as a child protection strategy - reflections on Nobakht et al. (2023).

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), including child maltreatment and interparental aggression, are known to have far-reaching consequences for mental health across the lifespan. Emerging evidence, such as that reported by Nobakht et al. (Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 2023), indicates that child conduct problems (e.g. oppositional defiant disorder, conduct disorder) may not only result from adversity but also contribute to it through transactional cascades that amplify risk for adversity over time. This commentary addresses some of the key implications of this evidence for translation into practice. It is argued that child conduct problems can be viewed as modifiable determinants of adversity and that the early identification and treatment of child conduct problems may allow for the early identification and reduction of risk for numerous ACEs.

Linking Perfectionism with Moral Behaviors in Sport: The Mediating Role of Burnout and Moral Disengagement.

Purpose: Research has identified a range of intrapersonal variables associated with moral behaviors in sport. However, research investigating how perfectionism and burnout are associated with prosocial and antisocial behavior toward teammates and opponents in sport has received scant attention. In the present study, we address this issue by examining whether perfectionism is associated with prosocial and antisocial behavior in sport directly and indirectly via burnout and moral disengagement. Method: A total of 312 team sport players completed validated measures for each variable. Results: Path analyses revealed that perfectionistic concerns had a negative relationship with prosocial behavior toward teammates and an indirect positive association with antisocial behavior toward both teammates and opponents via being positively associated with burnout, which in turn, was positively associated with moral disengagement. In contrast, perfectionistic strivings had a positive association with prosocial behavior toward teammates, and an indirect positive association with antisocial behavior toward teammates and opponents via moral disengagement. Conclusion: Our findings offer new insights into how perfectionism and burnout are associated with prosocial and antisocial behavior in sport, as well as highlight the need to consider perfectionistic tendencies and approaches to help reduce burnout and moral disengagement in the regulation of antisocial behavior in sport.

Cognitive and affective perspective taking amongst adolescent offenders with variants of callous-unemotional traits.

Evidence suggests that associations between antisocial behaviour, callous-unemotional (CU) traits and cognitive empathy (e.g. perspective taking) vary depending on more fine-grained dimensions of these constructs. This study examined associations between adolescent antisocial behaviour and individual differences in cognitive and affective perspective taking ability. Based on current theory regarding distinct variants of CU traits, we further tested whether the correlates of CU traits differed amongst youth with high versus low levels of anxiety. Participants were 130 male adolescents (81 youth offenders; 49 non-offenders) aged 13-20 years, of predominantly Caucasian and Aboriginal Australian ethnicity. Perspective taking skills were indexed using performance-based testing, and self-report data was collected on CU traits and anxiety in a cross-sectional design. Offender status was associated with poorer cognitive and affective perspective taking. In addition, associations between CU traits and perspective taking skills were moderated by anxiety. Specifically, CU traits were associated with poorer skills for second-order cognitive perspective taking amongst high-anxiety youth, whereas CU traits were associated with better cognitive and affective perspective taking skills amongst low-anxiety youth. More fine-grained assessment of such factors stands to enhance understanding of, and effective intervention for, antisocial youth.

An 'embedded brain' approach to understanding antisocial behaviour.

Antisocial behaviour (ASB) incurs substantial costs to the individual and society. Cognitive neuroscience has the potential to shed light on developmental risk for ASB, but it cannot achieve this potential in an 'essentialist' framework that focuses on the brain and cognition isolated from the environment. Here, we present the case for studying the social transactional and iterative unfolding of brain and cognitive development in a relational context. This approach, which we call the study of the 'embedded brain', is needed to fully understand how risk for ASB arises during development. Concentrated efforts are required to develop and unify methods to achieve this approach and reap the benefits for improved prevention and intervention of ASB.

[Aggressiveness and violence in daily ophthalmology practice: Descriptive analysis of a survey sent to residents and assistants in Grand Est and Bourgogne-Franche-Comté]. / Agressivité et violence au cours de l'exercice professionnel en ophtalmologie : analyse descriptive d'un questionnaire adressé aux internes et assistants des régions Grand Est, Bourgogne-Franche-Comté.

INTRODUCTION: The goal of this study was to estimate the prevalence of workplace violence in a population of young ophthalmologists in France and to characterize these situations. METHODS: We conducted an epidemiological descriptive, cross-sectional, multi-center study based on an anonymous questionnaire. We submitted a questionnaire to all ophthalmology residents and fellows (n=157) in the Grand Est and Bourgogne-Franche-Comté regions between December 2020 and March 2021. RESULTS: The overall response rate was 76.4% (n=120, 55% female and 45% male) of whom 81.6% reported having faced aggression at least once. For 50.9% of participants, aggression had occurred several times per year. These situations occurred during the first year of residency in 64.3% of cases. They mainly consisted of verbal aggression (98.8%) by a patient or their relatives (43.7% and 29.8%). The main complaints voiced by these individuals concerned the wait time (40%) and the feeling of lack of competence or improper medical care (26.8%). Fifty-seven percent of people who faced these situations thought about it for at least a week, and 20.4% of those exposed felt anxiety at work after the incident. CONCLUSION: We found high prevalence of verbal aggression in professional ophthalmology practice. Although these situations were mainly verbal aggression without significant consequences, they sometimes lead to anxiety in the aftermath. We should prepare medical students to manage them, through appropriate theoretical and practical training, such as medical simulation described in this article.

Parenting Characteristics and Callous-Unemotional Traits in Children Aged 0-6 Years: A Systematic Narrative Review.

There has been a growing interest in research examining the relationship between parenting and child callous-unemotional (CU) traits, particularly in early childhood. This study reviewed evidence from studies that investigated the relationship between parenting characteristics (e.g., caregiving beliefs, attitudes, behaviour or quality, or parental mental health) and callous-unemotional traits in children aged 0 to 6 years. A systematic search conducted according to PRISMA guidelines yielded 27 peer-reviewed articles. Analysis of the included articles suggested that there was strong evidence to support links between child CU traits and parenting characteristics (particularly, parental feelings about their child, warm parenting, and harsh/ inconsistent parenting). Taken together, the results of this review demonstrate the links between both positive and negative dimensions of parenting and CU traits in early childhood; however, mixed findings highlight the need for further research.

Perceived coach-created empowering and disempowering motivational climate and moral behaviour in sport: mediating role of moral disengagement.

Based on Duda's (2013) hierarchical and multidimensional conceptualization, this research integrates motivational climate dimensions from Achievement Goal Theory and Self-Determination Theory to investigate the constructs of empowering/disempowering motivational climates. We aimed to investigate the relationship between perceived coach-created motivational climate and prosocial-antisocial behaviours and determine whether moral disengagement mediated this relationship. 423 athletes completed self-reported questionnaires. The results showed that empowering motivational climate had a positive direct association with prosocial behaviour towards opponents/teammates. Disempowering motivational climate had a positive direct relationship with antisocial behaviour towards opponents/teammates. Also, disempowering motivational climate was indirectly related to antisocial behaviour towards teammates, antisocial behaviour towards opponents and prosocial behaviour towards opponents via moral disengagement. These findings suggest that athletes' perception of coach-created empowering motivational climate is likely to enhance athletes' prosocial behaviours, whereas athletes' perception of coach-created disempowering motivational climate may result in their higher antisocial behaviours which is mediated by moral disengagement. The findings emphasize the role of perceived coach-created motivational climates in athletes' moral behaviours, provide useful information on the mediating role of moral disengagement in this relationship and suggest practical implications for sports coaches, sports psychologists and sport executives who aim to create a positive sports environment for athletes.

Secure attachment predicts lower societal cost amongst severely antisocial adolescents.

BACKGROUND: Social and economic costs associated with antisocial behaviour are well-established, but little is known about the potential costs savings/benefits of secure attachment in this high-risk group. We aimed to provide the first test of attachment quality as a distinct predictor of economic costs. METHODS: 111 adolescents (10-17 years of age, M = 15.0, SD = 1.6; 71% male) referred to young offender services due to high levels of antisocial behaviour were included. Costs were measured by detailed service-use interview, and attachment security to mother and father elicited through the Child Attachment Interview. The level of antisocial behaviour and callous-unemotional traits were assessed. Cost predictors were calculated using generalised linear models. RESULTS: Mean 12-months service costs were £5,368 (sd 5,769) per adolescent, with justice system and educational service costs being the main components. After adjusting for covariates, economic costs were predicted by attachment quality to fathers, with a difference of £2,655 per year between those with secure (£3,338) versus insecure attachment (£5,993); significant cost effects were not found for attachment quality to mothers. Higher levels of callous-unemotional traits, lower verbal IQ, higher levels of antisocial behaviour, and older age were also significant cost predictors. CONCLUSIONS: Secure attachment to fathers is a predictor of reduced public cost in adolescents with severe antisocial behaviour. This novel finding for severely antisocial youth extends previous findings in less antisocial children and underscores the public health and policy benefits of good caregiving quality and the value of population-level dissemination of evidence-based interventions that improve caregiving quality.

Features of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and antisocial behaviour in a general population-based sample of adults.

BACKGROUND: Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is known to be a risk factor for antisocial and delinquent behaviour, but there is still a lack of information on how features of ADHD relate to offending behaviour among adults not already defined by their offending. AIMS: Our aim was to add to knowledge about relationships between ADHD and antisocial behaviour among adults in the general population by answering the following questions: (A) Does the level of self-reported ADHD features relate to criminal and non-criminal antisocial behaviour? (B) To what extent are self-ratings of ADHD features independent of socio-demographic features previously identified as predictors of antisocial behaviour? METHODS: A sample of adults was originally recruited to study public response to the COVID-19 outbreak through an online panel to be representative of the Israeli population. Among other scales, the 2025 participants completed an ADHD self-report scale, an antisocial behaviour self-report scale and a socio-demographic questionnaire probing for age, gender, urbanity, place of birth, socioeconomic status (education and income), family status (being in a relationship and having children) and religiosity. RESULTS: Higher mean totals for the inattention and hyperactivity ADHD scale scores were associated with higher mean antisocial behaviour scores. These relationships were only slightly affected by socio-demographic variables, including sex, age, education and income. CONCLUSION: Our findings suggest that not only may features of ADHD, even below a diagnostic threshold, constitute a risk factor for antisocial behaviour, but also that the self-rated levels of these problems covary. These findings are important for informing the early detection of risk of antisocial behaviour in the general population and its prevention.

Criminal recidivism in Colombian juvenile offenders: Related risk and protective factors / Reincidencia delictiva en adolescentes colombianos: factores de riesgo y protectores relacionados

Abstract Research with adolescent offenders is concerned with identifying risk and protective factors that influence recidivism and desistance from crime. A quantitative and cross-sectional investigation designed to examine the influence of risk and protective factors on recidivism in Colombian adolescents is presented. In seven regions of Colombia, a convenience sample was obtained, and 646 adolescents aged 14 to 19 years (M = 17.08; SD: 1.23; 15 % girls) belonging to the Sistema de Responsabilidad Penal para Adolescentes (SRPA) participated. The Communities That Care Youth Survey (CTC-YS) was used for the evaluation. It evaluated a broad set of risk and protective factors identified through the community, school, family, peer group, individual conditions, and behavioral outcomes, including drug use, antisocial behavior, and delinquency. Descriptive analyses were conducted, and all CTC-YS factors were correlated with antisocial behavior. The results show varying degrees of relationship between the factors assessed and antisocial behavior. Binary logistic regression was used to determine which risk and protective factors influence recidivism. It was noted that favorable parental attitudes towards drug use and antisocial behavior, early onset of drug use, low school engagement, and interaction with antisocial peers increases the probability of recidivism. Recidivism was identified as being affected by, among other factors, favorable parental attitudes toward drug use and antisocial behavior, early onset of drug use, and low school engagement. It was also observed that beliefs in a moral order, opportunities for prosocial school participation and lower drug use frequency reduce the probability of recidivism. According to the results, the factors that influence criminal recidivism are multiple, and social, family, school, and individual factors need to be addressed. The need to intervene in attitudes favorable to antisocial behavior on the part of parents, strengthen school services, and carry out treatment for drug use to favor the reduction of recidivism in Colombian adolescents is discussed.

Resumen La investigación con adolescentes ofensores busca identificar los factores de riesgo y de protección que afectan a la reincidencia y al desistimiento. Esta información es útil para desarrollar programas de prevención de la conducta antisocial y facilita los procesos de intervención que favorecen la reinserción social. Desde el punto de vista legal, la reincidencia es la participación de un individuo en nuevos actos delictivos, que conduce a una nueva condena, después de haber sido judicializado por un delito anterior. El desistimiento, en cambio, es la interrupción de la conducta antisocial y se caracteriza por la reinserción social exitosa y el ajuste a las normas de la comunidad. Se han identificado factores sociales, familiares, escolares, relacionales e individuales que afectan a la reincidencia y al desistimiento. Se presenta una investigación cuantitativa que utilizó una medición de corte transversal, diseñada para examinar la influencia de los factores de riesgo y protección en la reincidencia de los adolescentes colombianos. Se realizó un muestreo por disponibilidad y conveniencia en instituciones de siete departamentos o regiones geográficas de Colombia. Los participantes fueron 646 adolescentes de entre 14 y 19 años (M = 17.08; DT: 1.23; 15 % chicas). Todos ellos estaban judicializados y cumpliendo sus sanciones legales en el Sistema de Responsabilidad Penal para Adolescentes (SRPA). Para la evaluación se utilizó la encuesta Communities That Care Youth Survey (CTC-YS). Se trata de un instrumento de 135 ítems diseñado para medir un amplio conjunto de factores de riesgo y de protección identificados a través de las condiciones de la comunidad, la escuela, la familia, el grupo de pares y el individuo, así como los resultados conductuales, que incluyen el uso de drogas, la violencia, el comportamiento antisocial y la delincuencia. El instrumento mostró buena fiabilidad en este estudio. La reincidencia se evaluó con criterios legales, es decir, se tuvieron en cuenta el número de condenas oficiales. Para ello se revisaron los expedientes de los participantes y se los cruzó con la información reportada por los profesionales que atendían los centros y el autoinforme de los participantes. Se obtuvo la aprobación del comité de ética y permiso del gobierno a través del Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familiar -ICBF- (Autorización E-2016-660327-0111). Los consentimientos informados fueron firmados por los defensores, los directores de los centros de atención, los padres de los adolescentes y por cada uno de los participantes. Una vez finalizada la investigación, se socializaron los resultados a través de grupos focales con los interesados, incluidos los adolescentes. Se realizaron análisis descriptivos con los datos y se correlacionaron todos los factores del CTC-YS con la variable conducta antisocial y delictiva provista por el mismo instrumento. Luego se realizó una regresión logística binaria para determinar qué factores de riesgo y protección influyen en la reincidencia. Se observaron diferentes grados de relación entre los factores evaluados y la conducta antisocial-delictiva. Los resultados indican que la reincidencia se ve afectada, entre otros factores, por las actitudes favorables de los padres hacia el uso de drogas y la conducta antisocial, el inicio temprano del consumo de drogas y el bajo compromiso escolar. Las creencias en un orden moral y las oportunidades por la participación escolar prosocial y la menor frecuencia de uso de drogas muestran disminución en la probabilidad de reincidencia. Según los resultados, los factores que influyen en la reincidencia delictiva son múltiples y requieren la intervención de las condiciones sociales, familiares, escolares e individuales. Se discute la necesidad de intervenir en las actitudes favorables a la conducta delictiva por parte de los padres, fortalecer los servicios escolares, realizar tratamiento para abandonar el uso de drogas y desarrollar modelos de intervención que cuenten con evidencias de eficacia para ayudar a reducir la reincidencia en los adolescentes colombianos.

Monkey see, monkey do? Exploring parent-athlete behaviours from youth athletes' perspective.

Parents are an important social agent that can shape their child's behaviour in sport. However, the association between a youth athlete's perception of their parent's sideline sport behaviour and their own sporting behaviours is currently unclear. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to explore the relationship between parent and youth athlete behaviours in sport settings. Australian youth athletes (n = 67) participating in team-based sports completed an online survey where they reported their parents positive and negative sideline behaviours and their own prosocial and antisocial sport behaviour during the past month. Linear regression results suggested that parent's positive behaviours were associated with youth prosocial behaviours, whereas parent's negative behaviours were associated with youth antisocial behaviours. Results provide preliminary quantitative evidence that youth athletes' perceptions of their parents' sideline behaviours predict their own on-field behaviours. As antisocial athlete behaviours were positively associated with parent negative behaviours, sport organisations should target, and ideally eliminate, negative parent behaviours. Conversely, to improve prosocial athlete behaviour, encouraging positive parent behaviours should be promoted.

Mediating Effects of Discipline Approaches on the Relationship between Parental Mental Health and Adolescent Antisocial Behaviours: Retrospective Study of a Multisystemic Therapy Intervention.

Poor parental mental health is one of the risk factors for child emotional and behavioural problems because it reduces caregiver's ability to provide appropriate care for their child. This study aimed to measure changes in parenting factors and adolescent behaviours after Multisystemic Therapy (MST), and to explore the mediating role of discipline approaches on the relationship between parental mental health and adolescent behavioural problems. This retrospective study extracted data collected from 193 families engaged with the MST research program during 2014-2019. Data was collected at different time points (pre-treatment, post-treatment, 6- and 12-months follow-up). Statistically significant changes were found in adolescent behaviours and parenting factors following the MST intervention and these positive changes were maintained over the following 12 months. Results of the parallel multiple mediator model analysis confirmed mediating effects of discipline approaches on the relationship between parental mental health and adolescent's behavioural problems. The findings suggested that parental mental well-being significantly contributes to effectiveness of parenting, which resulted in positive changes in adolescent's behavioural problems. It is recommended caregiver's parental skills and any mental health issues are addressed during the intervention to enhance positive outcomes in adolescent behaviour.

The age of violence: Mapping brain age in psychosis and psychopathy.

Young chronological age is one of the strongest predictors for antisocial behaviour in the general population and for violent offending in individuals with psychotic disorders. An individual's age can be predicted with high accuracy using neuroimaging and machine-learning. The deviation between predicted and chronological age, i.e., brain age gap (BAG) has been suggested to reflect brain health, likely relating partly to neurodevelopmental and aging-related processes and specific disease mechanisms. Higher BAG has been demonstrated in patients with psychotic disorders. However, little is known about the brain-age in violent offenders with psychosis and the possible associations with psychopathy traits. We estimated brain-age in 782 male individuals using T1-weighted MRI scans. Three machine learning models (random forest, extreme gradient boosting with and without hyper parameter tuning) were first trained and tested on healthy controls (HC, n = 586). The obtained BAGs were compared between HC and age matched violent offenders with psychosis (PSY-V, n = 38), violent offenders without psychosis (NPV, n = 20) and non-violent psychosis patients (PSY-NV, n = 138). We ran additional comparisons between BAG of PSY-V and PSY-NV and associations with Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) total score as a measure of psychosis symptoms. Psychopathy traits in the violence groups were assessed with Psychopathy Checklist-revised (PCL-R) and investigated for associations with BAG. We found significantly higher BAG in PSY-V compared with HC (4.9 years, Cohen'sd = 0.87) and in PSY-NV compared with HC (2.7 years, d = 0.41). Total PCL-R scores were negatively associated with BAG in the violence groups (d = 1.17, p < 0.05). Additionally, there was a positive association between psychosis symptoms and BAG in the psychosis groups (d = 1.12, p < 0.05). While the significant BAG differences related to psychosis and not violence suggest larger BAG for psychosis, the negative associations between BAG and psychopathy suggest a complex interplay with psychopathy traits. This proof-of-concept application of brain age prediction in severe mental disorders with a history of violence and psychopathy traits should be tested and replicated in larger samples.

The association between cortisol-AA coordination in response to stress, negative urgency, and antisocial behavior in an urban adult sample.

Prior study has found that the interplay of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and the autonomic nervous system (ANS) influences behavior problems in youth. Yet, little is known regarding this relationship in adults and traits related to the coordination of the stress systems. This study aims to extend the findings of a youth sample that the coordination between HPA and ANS, measured as cortisol and alpha-amylase (AA) respectively, was associated with antisocial behavior in adults. Additionally, this study tests whether cortisol-AA coordination was associated with a conceptually relevant trait, negative urgency. A heterogeneous sample of 124 adults (college students, active offenders, and demographically matched controls) was recruited from a southern city. Participants filled out instruments for negative urgency and antisocial behavior, completed a modified Trier Social Stress Test (mTSST), and provided four saliva samples before and after mTSST to assay for cortisol and AA. Results showed that cortisol-AA stress coordination was stronger among offenders than other groups. Cortisol-AA stress coordination was also positively associated with antisocial behavior and with negative urgency. This study found support for the interpretation that cortisol-AA stress coordination may indicate an overshooting ANS response at high emotional distress, and highlight the importance of the multisystem approach in gaining new insights into behavior research.

Could Expanding and Investing in First-Episode Psychosis Services Prevent Aggressive Behaviour and Violent Crime?

OBJECTIVE: Some persons developing, or presenting, schizophrenia engage in aggressive behaviour (AB) and/or criminal offending. Most of these individuals display AB prior to a first episode of psychosis (FEP). In fact, approximately one-third of FEP patients have a history of AB, some additionally display other antisocial behaviours (A+AB). The large majority of these individuals have presented conduct problems since childhood, benefit from clozapine, have extensive treatment needs, and are unlikely to comply with treatment. A smaller sub-group begin to engage in AB as illness onsets. A+AB persists, often for many years in spite of treatment-as-usual, until a victim is seriously harmed. This article proposes providing multi-component treatment programs at FEP in order to prevent aggressive and antisocial behaviours of persons with schizophrenia. METHOD: Non-systematic reviews of epidemiological studies of AB among persons with schizophrenia, of the defining characteristics of sub-types of persons with schizophrenia who engage in AB and their responses to treatment, and of FEP service outcomes. RESULTS: Studies have shown that mental health services that simultaneously target schizophrenia and aggressive behaviour are most effective both in reducing psychotic symptoms and aggressive behaviour. Evidence, although not abundant, suggests that a multi-component treatment program that would include the components recommended to treat schizophrenia and cognitive-behavioural interventions to reduce A+AB, and the other factors promoting A+AB such as substance misuse, victimisation, and poor recognition of emotions in the faces of others has the potential to effectively treat schizophrenia and reduce A+AB. Patients with a recent onset of AB would require few components of treatment, while those with prior conduct disorder would require all. Such a program of treatment would be long and intense. CONCLUSIONS: Trials are needed to test the effectiveness of multi-component treatment programs targeting schizophrenia and A+AB at FEP. Studies are also necessary to determine whether providing such programs in hospitals and/or prisons, with long-term community after-care, and in some cases with court orders to participate in treatment, would enhance effectiveness. Whether investing at FEP would be cost-effective requires investigation.

Neural signatures of the development of antisocial behaviours and callous-unemotional traits among youth: The moderating role of parental support.

Comorbidity of antisocial behaviours (AB) and callous-unemotional (CU) traits characterizes a subgroup of youth at risk for chronic and severe AB in adulthood. Although aberrant neural response to facial emotion confers heightened risk for AB and CU traits, the behavioural effect of this neural response varies by family context. The present study examines the effects of neural response to emotional faces, parental support and the interaction between the two as predictors of AB and CU traits in a longitudinal sample of preadolescents (Nbaseline = 11,883; Mage = 9.5; 47.8% female). Low CU youth who evinced attenuated response to fearful faces within the left superior temporal sulcus and fusiform gyrus showed smaller decreases of AB over time; these associations did not extend to high CU youth. Among high CU youth reporting low parental support, blunted response to fearful faces within the bilateral inferior parietal sulcus predicted smaller decreases of AB. Study findings highlight neurobehavioural differences between youth with high and low CU traits, as well as the interacting roles of negative face processing and parental support in the development of AB.