title: Reactions to media violence: it's in the brain of the beholder.
abstract: Media portraying violence is part of daily exposures. The extent to which violent media exposure impacts brain and behavior has been debated. Yet there is not enough experimental data to inform this debate. We hypothesize that reaction to violent media is critically dependent on personality/trait differences between viewers, where those with the propensity for physical assault will respond to the media differently than controls. The source of the variability, we further hypothesize, is reflected in autonomic response and brain functioning that differentiate those with aggression tendencies from others. To test this hypothesis we pre-selected a group of aggressive individuals and non-aggressive controls from the normal healthy population; we documented brain, blood-pressure, and behavioral responses during resting baseline and while the groups were watching media violence and emotional media that did not portray violence. Positron Emission Tomography was used with [18F]fluoro-deoxyglucose (FDG) to image brain metabolic activity, a marker of brain function, during rest and during film viewing while blood-pressure and mood ratings were intermittently collected. Results pointed to robust resting baseline differences between groups. Aggressive individuals had lower relative glucose metabolism in the medial orbitofrontal cortex correlating with poor self-control and greater glucose metabolism in other regions of the default-mode network (DMN) where precuneus correlated with negative emotionality. These brain results were similar while watching the violent media, during which aggressive viewers reported being more Inspired and Determined and less Upset and Nervous, and also showed a progressive decline in systolic blood-pressure compared to controls. Furthermore, the blood-pressure and brain activation in orbitofrontal cortex and precuneus were differentially coupled between the groups. These results demonstrate that individual differences in trait aggression strongly couple with brain, behavioral, and autonomic reactivity to media violence which should factor into debates about the impact of media violence on the public.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Friedman Brain Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, United States of America; Department of Neuroscience, Friedman Brain Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, United States of America.
authors.forename: Nelly
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Alia-Klein
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Friedman Brain Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, United States of America; Laboratory of Neuroimaging, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America.
authors.forename: Gene-Jack
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Friedman Brain Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, United States of America.
authors.forename: Rebecca N
authors.initials: RN
authors.lastname: Preston-Campbell
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Friedman Brain Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, United States of America; Department of Neuroscience, Friedman Brain Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, United States of America.
authors.forename: Scott J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Moeller
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Friedman Brain Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, United States of America.
authors.forename: Muhammad A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Parvaz
authors.affiliation: Applied Mathematics and Statistics, SUNY, Stony Brook, New York, United States of America.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Neuroimaging, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America.
authors.forename: Millard C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Jayne
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Neuroimaging, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America.
authors.forename: Chris
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Wong
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Neuroimaging, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America.
authors.forename: Dardo
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Tomasi
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Friedman Brain Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, United States of America; Department of Neuroscience, Friedman Brain Institute, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, United States of America.
authors.forename: Rita Z
authors.initials: RZ
authors.lastname: Goldstein
authors.affiliation: Medical Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York, United States of America.
authors.forename: Joanna S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Fowler
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Neuroimaging, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America.
authors.forename: Nora D
authors.initials: ND
authors.lastname: Volkow
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect / Q000502:physiology; D000374:Aggression / Q000502:physiology / Q000523:psychology*; D000786:Anger / Q000502:physiology; D001794:Blood Pressure; D001931:Brain Mapping; D005947:Glucose / Q000378:metabolism; D006791:Hostility; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D008297:Male; D009928:Organ Specificity; D010296:Parietal Lobe / Q000378:metabolism*; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000378:metabolism*; D014754:Violence / Q000523:psychology*
chemical_list: D005947:Glucose