title: Childhood EEG frontal alpha power as a predictor of adolescent antisocial behavior: a twin heritability study.
abstract: High EEG frontal alpha power (FAP) is thought to represent a state of low arousal in the brain, which has been related in past research to antisocial behavior (ASB). We investigated a longitudinal sample of 900 twins in two assessments in late childhood and mid-adolescence to verify whether relationships exist between FAP and both aggressive and nonaggressive ASB. ASB was measured by the Child Behavioral Checklist, and FAP was calculated using connectivity analysis methods that used principal components analysis to derive power of the most dominant frontal activation. Significant positive predictive relationships emerged in males between childhood FAP and adolescent aggressive ASB using multilevel mixed modeling. No concurrent relationships were found. Using bivariate biometric twin modeling analysis, the relationship between childhood FAP and adolescent aggressive ASB in males was found to be entirely due to genetic factors, which were correlated r=0.22.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, United States. Electronic address: sniv@usc.edu.
authors.forename: Sharon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Niv
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Southern California, United States.
authors.forename: Syed
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ashrafulla
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, United States; School of Law, Psychology and Social Work, Örebro University, Sweden.
authors.forename: Catherine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Tuvblad
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering, Signal and Image Processing Institute, Brain and Creativity Institute, University of Southern California, United States.
authors.forename: Anand
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Joshi
authors.affiliation: Departments of Criminology, Psychiatry, and Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, United States.
authors.forename: Adrian
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Raine
authors.affiliation: Departments of Electrical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and Radiology, University of Southern California, United States.
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Leahy
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, United States.
authors.forename: Laura A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Baker
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D000374:Aggression / Q000502:physiology*; D000987:Antisocial Personality Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000235:genetics / Q000503:physiopathology; D002648:Child; D019955:Conduct Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000235:genetics / Q000503:physiopathology; D004200:Diseases in Twins / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000235:genetics / Q000503:physiopathology; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005260:Female; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D014427:Twins / Q000235:genetics*
keywords: Aggression; EEG; Frontal alpha power; Heritability; Twins