Abstract
Low serotonin has been associated with aggressive behavior and impulsivity. Executive functions (cognitive abilities involved in the initiation/maintenance of goal attainment) have also been related to aggression. We tested whether dietary depletion of tryptophan, the amino acid precursor of serotonin, would increase disinhibition (impulsivity) in aggressive male adolescents. Cognitive-neuropsychological variables predictive of disinhibition were explored. Stable aggressive and nonaggressive adolescent men received balanced and tryptophan-depleted amino acid mixtures separately (counterbalanced, double-blind). Commission errors on a go/no-go learning task (i.e., failures to inhibit responding to stimuli associated with punishment/nonreward) measured disinhibition. Aggressive adolescent males made more commission errors as compared to nonaggressives. Lower executive functioning was significantly related to commission errors over and above conventional memory abilities. Tryptophan depletion had no effect on commission errors in the aggressive adolescents, possibly because of a ceiling effect.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Molly Fortin, Fabienne Gauthier, and Claudine Morin for assistance with blood draws; Carole Blanchet, Dorothy Opatowski, Isabelle Tremblay, Jolène Gauthier, Richard Legros, and Jennifer Weiner for assistance in testing; Mark Gross and Franceen Lenoff for technical assistance; and Judi Young and Liz Rusnak for secretarial assistance. This research was conducted by David LeMarquand in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Ph.D. degree from the Department of Psychology, McGill University. This work was supported by grants from the Medical Research Council of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario (Drs. Pihl, Young, and Benkelfat), and doctoral and dissertation fellowships to D. LeMarquand from the Fonds pour la Formation de Chercheurs et L'Aide à la Recherche (FCAR), and the Guggenheim Foundation, New York. Portions of this research were presented at the Society for Biological Psychiatry, New York, May 1996; the Canadian College of Neuropsychopharmacology, Toronto, Canada, June 1996; and the NATO Advanced Study Institute on the Biosocial Bases of Violence: Theory and Research, Rhodes, Greece, May 1996.
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LeMarquand, D., Pihl, R., Young, S. et al. Tryptophan Depletion, Executive Functions, and Disinhibition in Aggressive, Adolescent Males. Neuropsychopharmacol 19, 333–341 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1016/S0893-133X(98)00029-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0893-133X(98)00029-3
