Program & Abstract Book - EPFL Latsis Symposium 2009

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EPFL Latsis Symposium 2009: Understanding Violence P-48 102 February 11-13 2009 ac u t e s t r e s s h a s a l o n g -l a s t i n g e f f e c t o n o f f e n s i v e b e h a v i o u r in a D o m i n a n c e h i e r a r c h y t e s t a n D l e a D s t o a D o w n r e g u l a t i o n o f m o n o a m i n e o X i D a s e a e X p r e s s i o n in l a t e r a l s e p t u m Timmer, Marjan 1 ; Sandi, Carmen 1 1 Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzer- land Stress can have a major impact on social behaviour. We use a rat model to investigate the effect of a stressful experience on the establishment and maintenance of hierarchies. On day 1, one rat of a pair is exposed to foot shocks prior to a social encounter and a food competition test (FCT). On day 8, the memory for the hierarchy established on day 1 is tested in a water competition test (WCT). Previous experiments in our group showed that rats that are exposed to a stressful experience before the first encounter usually become the subordinate individual of a pair. Furthermore, the memory that is formed for the established hierarchy is enhanced by stress compared to pairs consisting of two non-stressed rats. In the present experiment rats were submitted to stress followed by a social encounter and a FCT on day 1. In a WCT on day 8 they were exposed to an unfamiliar partner that was either dominant or subordinate on day 1 (without exposure to stress). Stressed rats became the dominant individual and showed a high ratio of offensive behaviour to a previously subordinate partner in the WCT, whereas this was not the case when paired with a previously dominant partner. In addition, we studied changes in the expression of monoamine oxidase A (MAO A) mRNA expression in the lateral septum under basal conditions, one week after exposure to stress and the social encounter. We found a downregulation in MAO A expression in stressed subordinate rats compared to naïve controls, and in the pairs consisting of a stressed and a non-stressed rat compared to pairs consisting of two non-stressed rats. Our results indicate that exposure to acute stress has a long-lasting effect on offensive behaviour, which might be explained by the downregulation in MAO A in lateral septum.
EPFL Latsis Symposium 2009: Understanding Violence P-49 Poster Abstracts th e e v a l u a t i o n o f criminal b e h a v i o u r a n D i t s relationship t o c e r t a i n inDiviDual c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s. a s t u D y o f a g r o u p o f a D o l e s c e n t s in so u t h e r n it a l y. Tramontano, Carlo 1 ; Baralla, Francesca 1 ; Giannini, Anna Maria 1 ; Sgalla, Roberto 2 ; Marchetti, Marco 3 1 Sapienza University of Rome, Italy; 2 Italian Ministry of Interior, Department of Public Security, Italy; 3 University of Molise, Italy This study is part of a broader research project aimed at understanding attitudes toward deviant behaviour within specific social and interpersonal contexts. Scientific literature has demonstrated a relationship between early problematic behaviour and the forms of antisociality and deviance in adolescence and in adult life (Moffitt, 1993; Schaeffer, et al. 1993; Loeber, Hay, 1997; Nagin, Tremblay, 1999), as well as between assent to deviant behaviour and the frequenting of groups where violations of social norms prevail. This research (supported by European funds to the Italian Ministry of Interior) focused on four target southern regions which experience relatively high levels of organized crime and criminality. A paper-and-pencil assessment was conducted in the Spring of 2007 with 1988 high school adolescents (51% male, 49% female; average age 16.43, s.d. 1.53) in eight cities in four regions. Hypothetical scenarios describing criminal behaviours were presented. To assess how each criminal behaviour was viewed by the subjects, each was asked several questions including whether or not the situation was probable, if they believed that the behaviour was in violation of the law, and if they considered the act acceptable. Afterwards, there was an evaluation of a possible correlation to certain dispositional characteristics which are associated with and which regulate conduct and behaviour understood as moral (Bandura et al., 1997), taking into consideration the results relative to four different evaluations obtained through questionnaires intended to measure, respectively: civic disengagement, “permeability to illegality”, pro-social behaviour, anti-social behaviour. Six clusters (SLEIPNER Program; Bergman, El-Khouri, 1998), were identified, separately for males and females, which presented statistically significant differences in relation to the tendency to minimize the gravity of the crime, to the evaluation of probability and to the recognition of the violation of the law for the various types of crimes considered. Such differences were found also in the choice of behaviour in answer to the hypothetical crime situations. 103
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Program & Abstract Book - EPFL Latsis Symposium 2009

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