Neural Correlates of Decisions in Quasi-Realistic, Affective Social Interactions in Individuals With Violence-Related Socialization.

Juliana Wiechert,Anja Achtziger,Thorsten Fehr,Axel Janzen

doi:10.3389/fnbeh.2021.713311

Abstract

Appropriate social behavior in aggressive-provocative interactions is a prerequisite for a peaceful life. In previous research, the dysfunctions of the control of aggression were suggested to be modulated by enhanced bottom-up (sub-cortically driven) and reduced top-down (iso-cortical frontal) processing capability. In the present study, two groups of individuals with enhanced (EG) and normal (NG) experiences of violent acts during their socialization made binary behavioral decisions in quasi-realistic social interactions. These interactions were presented in short video clips taken from a first-person perspective. The video clips showed social interaction scenarios oriented on realistic everyday life situations. The behavioral data supported the distinct affective qualities of three categories of social interactions. These categories were labeled as aggressive–provocative, social–positive, and neutral–social interactions. Functional neuroimaging data showed extended activation patterns and higher signal intensity for the NG compared to the EG in the lateral inferior frontal brain regions for the aggressive provocative interactions. Furthermore, the peri-aqueductal gray (PAG) produced enhanced activations for the affective interaction scenarios (i.e., aggressive-provocative and social-positive) in both groups and as a trend with the medium effect size for the neutral interactions in the EG. As the individuals in the EG did not show open aggression during the functional MRIA (fMRI) investigation, we concluded that they applied individual self-control strategies to regulate their aggressive impulses immediately. These strategies appeared to be top-down regulated through the dorsal frontal brain areas. The predominant recruitment of the heteromodal cortices during the neural processing of complex social interactions pointed to the important role of the learning history of individuals and their socialization with differing levels of violent experiences as crucial modulators in convicts. Our data suggest that building or strengthening the association between prototypical social contexts (e.g., aggressive-provocative interactions) and appropriate behaviors as a response to it provides a promising approach to successfully re-socialize people with a delinquent history.

Highlights

What Is Real Violence and How Can We Examine Its Neural Correlates in the Human Brain Validly?Reactive aggression or reactive violence is a term that refers to the behavior in response to an assault or any kind of provocation (Tedeschi and Quigley, 1996; Gendreau and Archer, 2005; Blair, 2010; Ferguson and Dyck, 2012)
We argue that there is still a lot of work to do, and this work needs to be inspired by a broad range of methodological [i.e., functional MRI and electroencephalogram (EEG)] and experimental [i.e., classic experimental set-ups as the Taylor Aggression Paradigm (TAP) (Taylor, 1967)] innovations such as the usage ofrealistic stimulations (e.g., Fehr et al, 2014) and other approaches
We argue that it is time to distinguish between the involvement of the peri-aqueductal gray (PAG) and other brain regions by considering the kind of experimental approach that was followed in a study, the characteristics of the sample, and the types of reactive aggression that were investigated

Summary

Introduction

What Is Real Violence and How Can We Examine Its Neural Correlates in the Human Brain Validly?Reactive aggression or reactive violence is a term that refers to the behavior in response to an assault or any kind of provocation (Tedeschi and Quigley, 1996; Gendreau and Archer, 2005; Blair, 2010; Ferguson and Dyck, 2012). Situations wherein a person faces a realistic threat that requires (self-) defense behavior as their life and health might be in acute danger are not represented validly in the game-like experimental set-ups used to measure the neural correlates of aggression (see Tedeschi and Quigley, 1996; Fehr, 2012; Ferguson and Dyck, 2012). More research is needed to explore and describe the complex picture of reactive aggressive behaviors in humans on both the behavioral and neural levels (see Fehr, 2012; Ferguson and Dyck, 2012)

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Conclusion