Single-photon emission tomography imaging of monoamine transporters in impulsive violent behaviour.
Several studies have shown that impulsive violent and suicidal behaviour is associated with a central serotonin deficit, but until now it has not been possible to use laboratory tests with high sensitivity and specificity to study this kind of deficit or to localize the sites of serotonergic abnormalities in the living human brain. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that monoamine transporter density in brain is decreased in subjects with impulsive violent behaviour. We studied serotonin (5-HT) and dopamine (DA) transporter specific binding in 52 subjects (21 impulsive violent offenders, 21 age- and sex-matched healthy controls, and ten non-violent alcoholic controls) with single-photon emission tomography (SPET) using iodine-123-labelled 2beta-carbomethoxy-3beta(4-iodophenyl)tropane ([123I]beta-CIT) as the tracer. The blind quantitative analysis revealed that the 5-HT specific binding of [123I]beta-CIT in the midbrain of violent offenders was lower than that in the healthy control subjects (P<0. 005; t test) or the non-violent alcoholics (P<0.05). The results imply that habitual impulsive aggressive behaviour in man is associated with a decrease in the 5-HT transporter density.
Tiihonen
J
J
Department of Forensic Psychiatry, University of Kuopio and Niuvanniemi Hospital, FIN-70240 Kuopio, Finland.
Kuikka
J T
JT
Bergström
K A
KA
Karhu
J
J
Viinamäki
H
H
Lehtonen
J
J
Hallikainen
T
T
Yang
J
J
Hakola
P
P
D000328:Adult; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000378:metabolism; D001921:Brain / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000378:metabolism; D002352:Carrier Proteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003042:Cocaine / Q000031:analogs & derivatives; D004298:Dopamine / Q000378:metabolism*; D050483:Dopamine Plasma Membrane Transport Proteins; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007175:Impulsive Behavior; D007457:Iodine Radioisotopes; D008297:Male; D008562:Membrane Glycoproteins / Q000378:metabolism*; D026901:Membrane Transport Proteins; D009419:Nerve Tissue Proteins; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012701:Serotonin / Q000378:metabolism*; D050486:Serotonin Plasma Membrane Transport Proteins; D015899:Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon; D014754:Violence
D002352:Carrier Proteins; D050483:Dopamine Plasma Membrane Transport Proteins; D007457:Iodine Radioisotopes; D008562:Membrane Glycoproteins; D026901:Membrane Transport Proteins; D009419:Nerve Tissue Proteins; C493230:SLC6A4 protein, human; D050486:Serotonin Plasma Membrane Transport Proteins; D012701:Serotonin; C069723:2beta-carbomethoxy-3beta-(4-iodophenyl)tropane; D003042:Cocaine; D004298:Dopamine