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Violence in schizophrenia is best investigated within the broader context of violent behavior in the general population. Two important domains of general pathology which allow us to take such an approach include impairment in emotion processing, as manifested by faulty facial emotion recognition, and aggressive reactivity which consists of heightened sensitivity to provocation. To test this approach, we included 135 subjects: 38 violent (VS's) and 33 nonviolent patients with schizophrenia, 32 healthy controls and 32 non-psychotic violent subjects (NPV's). We measured violence with the Life History of Aggression Scale, recognition of facial emotions with the Emotion Recognition Task, and aggressive reactivity through the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire. Adolescent antisocial behavior was evaluated as a potential precursor to these deficits. We found that impairment in fear recognition (IFR) and aggressive reactivity have a significant effect on violence in the violent groups. These two impairments interact in different ways in these groups. In NPV's they contribute in an additive fashion to violence, whereas in VS's they represent separate pathways; aggressive reactivity leads to violence only when there is no IFR. Adolescent antisocial behavior has a differential effect on these 2 impairments in the 2 groups. Thus, these findings provide insights on the differential role of IFR and aggressive reactivity for violence in schizophrenia compared to the general population. In NPV's, both dysfunctions represent antisocial features and contribute jointly to violence. In schizophrenia, they have different etiologies and constitute alternative pathways to violence. This has important implications for the conceptualization and treatment of violence., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Response inhibition deficits are well-documented in drug users, and are related to the impulsive tendencies characteristic of the addictive phenotype. Addicts also show significant motivational issues that may accentuate these inhibitory deficits. We investigated the extent to which these inhibitory deficits are present in abstinence. Salience of the task stimuli was also manipulated on the premise that emotionally-valenced inputs might impact inhibitory efficacy by overcoming the blunted responses to everyday environmental inputs characteristic of this population. Participants performed response inhibition tasks consisting of both neutral and emotionally valenced stimuli while high-density event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded. Electrophysiological responses (N2/P3 components) to successful inhibitions in abstinent abusers (N = 20) and non-using participants (N = 21) were compared. In contrast to previous work in current users, our abstinent cohort showed no detectable behavioral or electrophysiological differences in their inhibitory responses, and no differences on self-reports of impulsivity, despite their long histories of chronic use (mean = 10.3 years). The current findings are consistent with a recovery of inhibitory control processes as a function of abstinence. Abstinent former users, however, did show a reduced modulation, relative to controls, of their ERPs to valenced input while performing successful inhibitions, although contrary to our hypothesis, the use of valenced inputs had no impact on inhibitory performance. Reduced ERP modulation to emotionally valenced inputs may have implications for relapse in emotional contexts outside the treatment center., (Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

This study compared patients who showed persistent violence, transient violence and no violence. The presence of neurological abnormalities was found to be the factor that differentiated most clearly among the three groups. The persistently violent patients, in addition to showing significantly more neurological abnormalities, also evidenced a more disturbed family background. Both violent groups had a higher incidence of violent crime prior to hospitalization than the nonviolent controls. A logistic regression model simultaneously relating the effects of six factors on violent behavior was developed and used to predict violent group membership.