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Program & Abstract Book - EPFL Latsis Symposium 2009

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<strong>EPFL</strong> <strong>Latsis</strong> <strong>Symposium</strong> <strong>2009</strong>: Understanding Violence<br />

P-46<br />

100<br />

February 11-13 <strong>2009</strong><br />

ge n D e r a n D ag g r e s s i o n: an fmri-st u D y<br />

Strüber, Daniel1 2 ; Roth, Gerhard2 ; Herrmann, Manfred3 4 ;<br />

3 4<br />

Fehr, Thorsten<br />

1 Department of General Psychology, Helmut-Schmidt-University<br />

/ University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg, Germany;<br />

2 Brain Research Institute, University of Bremen, Germany; 3 Center<br />

for Cognitive Sciences, Department of Neuropsychology and<br />

Behavioral Neurobiology, University of Bremen, Germany; 4 Center<br />

for Advanced Imaging, Universities of Bremen and Magdeburg,<br />

Germany<br />

It is a well-known fact that men engage in more direct aggression than<br />

women. However, the neural correlates of this gender difference remain<br />

unclear. Here we employed a novel video stimulus inventory (BRAIN–BRemen<br />

Aggression INventory) to examine the affective responses and brain<br />

activations while 11 men and 11 women viewed aggressive and neutral<br />

scenes under natural viewing conditions. Per category, 30 video clips (5-6<br />

seconds duration) were presented in a pseudorandomized order. The behavioural<br />

results showed that the aggressive scenes induced more anger<br />

and less fear in men whereas women rated their emotions as more fearful<br />

and less angry. The fMRI data showed for both males and females activation<br />

patterns in postcentral and inferior parietal regions when watching the<br />

reactive aggressive situations in contrast to neutral ones. Females further<br />

showed occipital and occipital-temporal activations possibly reflecting a<br />

more intense and fear-based analysis of the situation, whereas males<br />

showed a more anterior distribution of activations in temporal and frontal<br />

brain regions. In addition, men only showed bilateral brainstem activations<br />

which might be linked to a more pronounced tendency of attack behaviour.<br />

Basic neural network components related to aggressive behaviour might<br />

be located predominantly in subcortical structures, whereas aggressionrelated<br />

action programs might reflect individual learning histories and,<br />

therefore, be located in group-specific and/or interindividually varying<br />

neocortical networks. These findings demonstrate gender-specific brain<br />

activations during the affective processing of aggressive situations that<br />

may relate to gender differences in direct aggression.

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