Neurocognitive models of aggression, the antisocial personality disorders,and psychopathy

This paper considers neurocognitive models of aggression and relates them t o explanations of the antisocial personality disorders. Two forms of aggres sion are distinguished: reactive aggression elicited in response to frustra tion/threat and goal directed, instrumental aggression. It is argued that d ifferent forms of neurocognitive model are necessary to explain the emergen ce of these different forms of aggression. Impairments in executive emotion al systems (the somatic marker system or the social response reversal syste m) are related to reactive aggression shown by patients with "acquired soci opathy" due to orbitofrontal cortex lesions. Impairment in the capacity to form associations between emotional unconditioned stimuli, particularly dis tress cues, and conditioned stimuli (the violence inhibition mechanism mode l) is related to the instrumental aggression shown by persons with developm ental psychopathy.