Aggression is a worldwide public health problem, with devastating effects to perpetrators, victims, and society, and with associated costs of over 100 billion dollars in the U.S. alone. Alcohol is the drug that is most commonly linked to violent behavior, with the majority of serious violent acts (e.g., homicide) occurring under the influence of alcohol. Despite correlational research showing interpersonal violence occurs across gender, laboratory studies of aggression (which rely almost exclusively on community/college samples) have failed to demonstrate alcohol-facilitated physical aggression for women. In contrast, laboratory studies have repeatedly shown that alcohol facilitates aggression in men who are high in trait aggressiveness and/or low in executive functioning (i.e., planning, reasoning, response inhibition). The proposed project will compare the physically aggressive behavior of clinically aggressive (as defined by a current diagnosis of Intermittent Explosive Disorder [IED];N=75) and control (healthy volunteer: N=75) women after administration of either (a) approximately 0.90g/kg (adjusted for BMI) of alcohol, (b) an active placebo drink, or (c) a clearly marked non-alcoholic drink. The study will occur over 2 days. On day 1, subjects will complete a diagnostic evaluation, related measures, and an executive functioning battery that includes: trails B, Stroop task, conditional associative learning task, Wisconsin card sort task, porteus maze and the go nogo task. On day 2, subjects will consume the alcohol/placebo/no-alcohol drink, then complete a laboratory task of physical aggression - the Taylor Aggression Paradigm (TAP) approximately 20 minutes after cessation of drink consumption. Aggression on the TAP is defined as the intensity of shock the subject administers to a (unbeknownst to the subject) fictitious opponent. It is hypothesized that alcohol will facilitate aggression only for women in the IED condition, and that alcohol-facilitated aggression would be moderated by executive functioning. Furthering our understanding of the inter-relationship between history of physical aggression, executive functioning, and alcohol-facilitated aggression in women will help guide development of intervention programs for aggressive women and spur additional research into models of alcohol-facilitated aggression in women.

The proposed project will compare the physically aggressive behavior of clinically aggressive (as defined by a current diagnosis of Intermittent Explosive Disorder [IED]) and control women after administration of either approximately 0.90g/kg of alcohol, an active placebo drink, or a clearly marked non-alcoholic drink.

R03AA016831

2008-05-10

2011-04-30