Sex Differences in Physiological Predictors of Aggression in a Highly Traumatized, Inner-city Population of Men and Women Público
Skelton, Elicia Duff (2014)
Published
Abstract
Violence is a serious public health concern with devastating physical, mental, social, and economic repercussions. In order to develop appropriate preventive and interventional strategies, risk factors associated with violence and aggression must be identified. Many of the previously studied predictors of aggression are subjective and often difficult to quantify, making risk-stratification difficult and necessitating the need to establish objective indices. The goal of this thesis is to identify whether the following physiological correlates of autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity - fear-potentiated startle response, respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) in response to a negative stimulus (i.e. delivery of loud acoustic startle probes), and resting heart rate (HR)- are predictive of aggression in both men and women. Physiological data were collected between May 2008 and January 2011 from a population of 309 highly traumatized, at-risk, primarily African American civilians seeking primary care at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, GA. After excluding all individuals with missing self-reported aggression data, 251 remained. In men, fear-potentiated startle response to a cue that was previously paired with an airblast (danger cue, CS+) and startle RSA were positively associated with aggression (R=0.26, R2=0.07, p<0.05 and R=0.32, R2=0.10, p<0.05, respectively) and resting HR was negatively associated with aggression (R= -0.26, R2=0.07, p=0.042). In women, only resting HR was significantly negatively associated with aggression (R= -0.24 R2=0.06, p<0.01). This study demonstrates that among men aggression is associated with dysregulation of ANS activity both at rest and in response to stressors, while among women aggression may only be associated with components of the ANS involved in resting HR. The associations between each of these physiological predictors and aggression in addition to the sex differences between each of these associations may provide further insight into the etiology of aggression. Such findings may eventually help in the development of measures targeted at identification of individuals prone to aggression and violence.
Table of Contents
BACKGROUND page 1
METHODS page 7
RESULTS page 15
DISSCUSION page 24
FUTURE DIRECTIONS page 38
REFERENCES page 40
TABLES AND FIGURES page 50
APPENDICES page 65
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