A significant gap in the literature on risk factors for psychopathy is the relative lack of research on parental bonding.MethodThis study examines the cross-sectional relationship between maternal ...and paternal bonding, childhood physical abuse and psychopathic personality at age 28 years in a community sample of 333 males and females. It also assesses prospectively whether children separated from their parents in the first 3 years of life are more likely to have a psychopathic-like personality 25 years later.
Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that: (1) poor parental bonding (lack of maternal care and low paternal overprotection) and childhood physical abuse were both associated with a psychopathic personality; (2) parental bonding was significantly associated with psychopathic personality after taking into account sex, social adversity, ethnicity and abuse; (3) those separated from parents in the first 3 years of life were particularly characterized by low parental bonding and a psychopathic personality in adulthood; and (4) the deviant behavior factor of psychopathy was more related to lack of maternal care whereas the emotional detachment factor was related to both lack of maternal care and paternal overprotection.
Findings draw attention to the importance of different components of early bonding in relation to adult psychopathy, and may have potential implications for early intervention and prevention of psychopathy.
Recent research suggests that prenatal exposure to nonviral infection may be associated with increased risk of schizophrenia, and we hypothesized an association between maternal bacterial infection ...during pregnancy and elevated offspring risk of schizophrenia. Data on maternal infections from the Copenhagen Perinatal Cohort were linked with the Danish National Psychiatric Register. Offspring cases of narrowly defined schizophrenia (International Classification of Diseases, Eighth Revision ICD-8) and more broadly defined schizophrenia (ICD-8 and ICD-10) were identified before the ages of 32-34 and 45-47 years, respectively. The effect of prenatal exposure to bacterial infections was adjusted for prenatal exposure to analgesics and parental social status. In a risk set of 7941 individuals, 85 cases (1.1%) of ICD-8 schizophrenia were identified by the age of 32-34 years and 153 cases (1.9%) of more broadly defined schizophrenia by the age of 45-47 years. First-trimester exposure conferred an elevated risk of ICD-8 schizophrenia (odds ratio 2.53; 95% confidence interval CI 1.07-5.96) and also of broadly defined schizophrenia (odds ratio 2.14; 95% CI 1.06-4.31). Second-trimester exposure also conferred a significantly elevated risk of schizophrenia but only in unadjusted analyses. These findings suggest a relationship between maternal bacterial infection in pregnancy and offspring risk of schizophrenia, and this effect was somewhat stronger for ICD-8 schizophrenia with earlier onset. Post hoc analyses showed that upper respiratory tract and gonococcal infections were associated with elevated risk of the disease. An association between risk of schizophrenia and prenatal exposure to bacterial infections might be mediated through transplacental passage of maternally produced cytokines in response to bacterial infections.
Previous studies indicate that low resting heart rate is probably the best-replicated biological correlate of childhood antisocial and aggressive behavior. Nevertheless, there have been few ...longitudinal tests of this relationship, little control over potential confounds and mediators, and no test of its cross-cultural generalizability. This study tests the hypothesis that low resting heart rate at age 3 years predicts aggression at age 11 years.
Resting heart rate at age 3 years was assessed in 1,795 male and female children from Mauritius. Aggressive and nonaggressive forms of antisocial behavior were assessed at age 11 years using the Child Behavior Checklist.
Aggressive children had lower heart rates than nonaggressive children (p < .001). Conversely, those with low heart rates were more aggressive than those with high heart rates (p < .003). There were no interactions with gender or ethnicity. Evidence was found for specificity of low heart rate to aggressive forms of antisocial behavior. Group differences in heart rate were not attributable to 11 biological, psychological, and psychiatric mediators and confounds.
It is concluded that low resting heart rate, a partly heritable trait reflecting fearlessness and stimulation-seeking, is an important, diagnostically specific, well-replicated, early biological marker for later aggressive behavior.
Recent neurodevelopmental models of schizophrenia, together with substantial evidence of neurocognitive dysfunction among people with schizophrenia, have led to a widespread view that general ...cognitive deficits are a central aspect of schizophrenic pathology. However, the temporal relationships between intellectual functioning and schizophrenia-spectrum illness remain unclear.
Longitudinal data from the Copenhagen High-Risk Project (CHRP) were used to evaluate the importance of intellectual functioning in the prediction of diagnostic and functional outcomes associated with the schizophrenia spectrum. The effect of spectrum illness on intellectual and educational performance was also evaluated. The sample consisted of 311 Danish participants: 99 at low risk, 155 at high risk, and 57 at super-high risk for schizophrenia. Participants were given intellectual Weschler's Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC)/Weschler's Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) assessments at mean ages of 15 and 24 years, and diagnostic and functional assessments at mean ages 24 and 42 years.
Intellectual functioning was found to have no predictive relationship to later psychosis or spectrum personality, and minimal to no direct relationship to later measures of work/independent living, psychiatric treatment, and overall severity. No decline in intellectual functioning was associated with either psychosis or spectrum personality.
These largely negative findings are discussed in the light of strong predictive relationships existing between genetic risk, diagnosis and functional outcomes. The pattern of predictive relationships suggests that overall cognitive functioning may play less of a role in schizophrenia-spectrum pathology than is widely believed, at least among populations with an evident family history of schizophrenia.
The authors previously reported that birth complications interact with early maternal rejection in predisposing individuals to violence at age 18 years. This study extended the follow-up period for ...violent offending from 18 years to 34 years, thus increasing the sample of violent offenders threefold and allowing more detailed analyses on onset and type of violence, the form of maternal rejection, and the effect of maternal mental illness.
Complications in the births of 4,269 males in Denmark, maternal rejection of these individuals before the age of 1 year, and their histories of criminal offenses at age 34 years were assessed.
The biosocial interaction previously observed held for violent but not nonviolent crime, was specific to more serious forms of violence and not threats of violence, held for early-onset but not late-onset violence, and was not accounted for by psychiatric illness in the mothers. Being reared in a public care institution in the first year of life and the mother's attempt to abort the fetus were the key aspects of maternal rejection that interacted with birth complications in predisposing a subject to violence.
These findings 1) indicate that the mechanisms underlying early-onset, serious violence differ from those for less serious, late-onset violence, 2) implicate very early factors in the development of violence, 3) highlight the potential importance of integrating psychosocial with biological factors in understanding and preventing violence, and 4) suggest that interventions to reduce birth complications and maternal rejection may help reduce violence.
Poor nutrition is thought to predispose to externalizing behavior problems, but to date there appear to have been no prospective longitudinal studies testing this hypothesis. This study assessed ...whether 1) poor nutrition at age 3 years predisposes to antisocial behavior at ages 8, 11, and 17 years, 2) such relationships are independent of psychosocial adversity, and 3) IQ mediates the relationship between nutrition and externalizing behavior problems.
The participants were drawn from a birth cohort (N=1,795) in whom signs of malnutrition were assessed at age 3 years, cognitive measures were assessed at ages 3 and 11 years, and antisocial, aggressive, and hyperactive behavior was assessed at ages 8, 11, and 17 years.
In relation to comparison subjects (N=1,206), the children with malnutrition signs at age 3 years (N=353) were more aggressive or hyperactive at age 8 years, had more externalizing problems at age 11, and had greater conduct disorder and excessive motor activity at age 17. The results were independent of psychosocial adversity and were not moderated by gender. There was a dose-response relationship between degree of malnutrition and degree of externalizing behavior at ages 8 and 17. Low IQ mediated the link between malnutrition and externalizing behavior at ages 8 and 11.
These results indicate that malnutrition predisposes to neurocognitive deficits, which in turn predispose to persistent externalizing behavior problems throughout childhood and adolescence. The findings suggest that reducing early malnutrition may help reduce later antisocial and aggressive behavior.
Methods to prevent two major mental disorders, schizophrenia and conduct disorder, have been elusive. This study assessed the effects of an early nutritional, educational, and physical exercise ...enrichment program on adult outcome for schizotypal personality, conduct disorder, and criminal behavior.
Eighty-three children were assigned to an experimental enrichment program from ages 3 to 5 years and matched on temperament, nutritional, cognitive, autonomic, and demographic variables with 355 children who experienced usual community conditions (control group). Both self-report and objective measures of schizotypal personality and antisocial behavior were obtained when the subjects were ages 17 and 23 years.
Subjects who participated in the enrichment program at ages 3-5 years had lower scores for schizotypal personality and antisocial behavior at age 17 years and for criminal behavior at age 23 years, compared with the control subjects. The beneficial effects of the intervention were greater for children who showed signs of malnutrition at age 3 years, particularly with respect to outcomes for schizotypy at ages 17 and 23 and for antisocial behavior at age 17.
The results are consistent with an increasing body of knowledge that implicates an enriched, stimulating environment in beneficial psychological and behavioral outcomes. These findings have potential implications for the prevention of schizophrenia and criminal behavior.
Our findings in the Helsinki Influenza Study and the Danish Forty Year Study lead us to conclude that a 2nd-trimester maternal influenza infection may increase risk for adult schizophrenia or adult ...major affective disorder. More recently we have also reported an increase of unipolar depression among offspring who were exposed prenatally to a severe earthquake (7.8 on the Richter scale) in Tangshan, China. Among the earthquake-exposed males (but not the females), we observed a significantly greater depression response for those individuals exposed during the 2nd trimester of gestation. These findings suggest that maternal influenza infection and severe maternal stress may operate (in different ways) as teratogens, disrupting the development of the fetal brain and increasing risk for developing schizophrenia or depression in adulthood.
Whilst the syndrome approach to schizotypy has recently demonstrated differential correlates of a three-factor model of schizotypal personality, variations in the nature of these factors question a ...basic assumption of this approach. This study tested competing models of the factor structure of schizotypal personality using the Schizotypal Personality Questionnaire (SPQ) in a sample of 1,201 Mauritians. Factor invariance across gender, ethnicity, family adversity, and religion and across a psychopathologically select group was also assessed. Results suggest that a three-factor model, Cognitive-Perceptual Deficits, Interpersonal Deficits, and Disorganization, underlies individual differences across widely varying groups. Other competing three-factor schizotypal personality models did not fit the data better. It is argued that the three-factor Disorganized model is a well-replicated model of DSM schizotypal personality in community samples but possibly not in some clinical samples.
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