A02: Context effects on threat processing in dependence of testosterone levels
The focus will be on the influences of a provocative context on social threat processing in AMD under different testosterone levels.
Biological Psychiatry
A04: Implicit chemosensory threat signals as stimulators of amygdala hyperresponsiveness in AMD
We make use of threat-related chemosensory stimuli, namely body odor, acquired during aggressive behavior (boxing) and unconsciously perceived, to investigate heightened amygdala responses to threat stimuli in aggressive patients.
A05: Peripersonal space violations and social threat: daily-life psychological and neural mechanisms of environmental risk for reactive aggression
Peripersonal space, the representation of the space immediately surrounding the body, will be studied as an underlying factor for threat experience.
A07: The intestinal microbiota as a regulator of aggressive and impulsive behavior
This translational project investigates sex-dependent behavioral effects of faecal microbiota transplantation to microbiome-depleted mice from AMD patients (selected based on their aggressive and impulsive traits from Q01), as well as healthy controls.
A08: The metabolic lung-brain axis in aggressive behavior in patients with AMD
Beta-hydroxy-butyrate (BHB), a ketone body, is negatively associated with aggressive behavior.
B01: Neurobehavioral effects of repetitive prefrontal transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on pathological aggression
TDCS will be used as an interventional tool to decrease aggression.
B02: Young offenders’ self-regulation deficit as a common mechanism for aggressive behavior and psychopathology - neural mechanisms and role of adverse childhood experiences
This project aims to identify cognitive and emotion control deficits in the context of negative valence and threat interference and their association with ACE in young offenders.
B03: A process-based brain-computer interface to modulate aggressive behavior – a real-time fMRI neurofeedback study
Probe the self-regulation of CS networks in adults and adolescents diagnosed with mental disorders related to frequent stress-associated affective outbursts and aggressive symptoms in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and BPD.
B04: Investigating psychological and neural correlates of intimate partner violence
Focus on the neural correlates of characterizing cognitive control deficits during conflict situations.
C01: Gene-environment interactions and the role of impulsivity in responding to acute threats: early life stress and escalated aggression in recombinant inbred mouse strains
Sex-dependent effects and gene-environment interactions will be investigated by applying escalating aggression paradigms.
C02: Aggressive decisions in social conflicts: Neuro-cognitive models for healthy individuals and psychiatric patients with high scores of aggression
Develop virtual scenarios to assess decision strategies in cartoon-like and naturalistic contexts.
C03: Distributed network control and interventions to frustrative non-reward and threat triggered aggressions
Investigate context-dependent aggression triggered by frustrative non-reward or acute social threats.
C04: The sex-specific role of genes, early adversity, peers, community violence, and puberty related endocrinological changes in adolescent pathological aggression
Address sex-specific NVS (reactive aggression) and CS (different dimensions of psychopathy, proactive aggression) associated risk factors, and risk factor-based biosignatures.
C05: The neuroanatomical underpinnings of clinical aggression and their relationship with the negative valence and cognitive control systems
Link questionnaire measures of aggression to specific neural substrates using structural MRI.
C07: Identifying mediators of threat-aggression and experimental manipulation by tDCS
Test the interaction of the CS and frustrative non-reward as part of the NVS.
Q01: Recruitment and biotyping transdiagnostic risk mechanisms for aggressive behaviors in mental disorders across the life span
Tobias Banaschewski
Thomas Frodl
Sabine Herpertz
Andreas Reif
Christine Margarete Freitag
Ute Habel
Kerstin Konrad
Service project
RWTH Aachen
Central Institute of Mental Health
Heidelberg University
Goethe University Frankfurt
Biological Psychiatry
Clinical Psychiatry, Psychotherapy, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
The central recruitment platform for collecting and curating a longitudinal dataset for studying individual aggression dynamics related to the neural, cognitive-emotional, neurobiological, psychopathological and environmental factors in patient groups.