ABNORMAL STRUCTURE OF HUMAN STRIATAL DOPAMINE REUPTAKE SITES IN HABITUALLY VIOLENT ALCOHOLIC OFFENDERS - A FRACTAL ANALYSIS

Both animal and human studies imply that aggressive behaviour is assoc iated with increased dopaminergic transmission. Our hypothesis was tha t impulsive violent offenders have also higher heterogeneity of the st riatal dopamine transporter (DAT) density than controls. We performed a fractal analysis in 21 impulsive violent offenders, 10 non-violent a lcoholics and 21 controls to measure the heterogeneity and laterality of the striatal DAT density characterised by [I-123]beta-CIT single-ph oton emission tomography (SPET). The [I-123]beta-CIT distribution was significantly more heterogeneous in the right striatum of violent offe nders than in healthy controls. In addition, in young violent offender s there was no normal left-to-right asymmetry observed in control subj ects of the same age. The normalisation of the left-to-right asymmetry may reflect late neurobiological maturation. (C) 1998 Elsevier Scienc e Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.