title: Abnormal structure of human striatal dopamine re-uptake sites in habitually violent alcoholic offenders: a fractal analysis.
abstract: Both animal and human studies imply that aggressive behaviour is associated with increased dopaminergic transmission. Our hypothesis was that impulsive violent offenders have also higher heterogeneity of the striatal dopamine transporter (DAT) density than controls. We performed a fractal analysis in 21 impulsive violent offenders, 10 non-violent alcoholics and 21 controls to measure the heterogeneity and laterality of the striatal DAT density characterised by [123I]beta-CIT single-photon emission tomography (SPET). The [123I]beta-CIT distribution was significantly more heterogeneous in the right striatum of violent offenders than in healthy controls. In addition, in young violent offenders there was no normal left-to-right asymmetry observed in control subjects of the same age. The normalisation of the left-to-right asymmetry may reflect late neurobiological maturation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Physiology, Kuopio University Hospital, Finland. jkuikka@uku.fi
authors.forename: J T
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Kuikka
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Tiihonen
authors.forename: K A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Bergström
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Karhu
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Räsänen
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Eronen
mesh_terms: D000374:Aggression; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000378:metabolism*; D001665:Binding Sites / Q000502:physiology; D001921:Brain / Q000378:metabolism / Q000502:physiology; D002352:Carrier Proteins / Q000032:analysis; D003042:Cocaine / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000031:analogs & derivatives; D003342:Corpus Striatum / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000502:physiology; D004298:Dopamine / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000502:physiology; D050483:Dopamine Plasma Membrane Transport Proteins; D017709:Fractals; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D007175:Impulsive Behavior / Q000503:physiopathology; D007275:Injections, Intravenous; D007457:Iodine Radioisotopes; D008562:Membrane Glycoproteins; D026901:Membrane Transport Proteins; D009419:Nerve Tissue Proteins; D015899:Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon; D014754:Violence
chemical_list: D002352:Carrier Proteins; D050483:Dopamine Plasma Membrane Transport Proteins; D007457:Iodine Radioisotopes; D008562:Membrane Glycoproteins; D026901:Membrane Transport Proteins; D009419:Nerve Tissue Proteins; C493214:SLC6A3 protein, human; C069723:2beta-carbomethoxy-3beta-(4-iodophenyl)tropane; D003042:Cocaine; D004298:Dopamine