Abstract

Despite aggression being detrimental to children’s physical health, mental health and social development, the dispositional and neurological antecedents of aggression in the child are poorly understood. Here we examined the relationship between trait aggression as measured by Buss and Warren’s Aggression Questionnaire and personality traits measured with Big Five Questionnaire for Children in 77 primary-school children and recorded resting-state brain activity (fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations [fALFF]) and resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) using functional magnetic resonance imaging. The present results showed that trait aggression was negatively correlated with agreeableness and positively correlated with neuroticism. The brain analyses showed that children with a higher propensity for aggression had a lower fALFF mainly in the left superior temporal gyrus, right parahippocampal gyrus and left supramarginal gyrus. Physical and total aggressions were negatively associated with rsFC between the right parahippocampal gyrus and the right putamen. Further analysis revealed that this rsFC could moderate the influence of neuroticism on total aggression. Moreover, the results suggest the presence of a sex difference in the neurodevelopmental mechanisms underlying aggression in middle childhood. Overall, our findings indicate that aggressive children have lower agreeableness and higher neuroticism, and the underlying neural systems are mainly implicated in social judgment and empathy.

中文翻译：

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与攻击性儿童相关的人格倾向和静息态神经相关性

摘要

尽管攻击行为不利于儿童的身体健康、心理健康和社会发展，但人们对儿童攻击行为的性格和神经因素却知之甚少。在这里，我们研究了 77 名小学生的巴斯和沃伦攻击性问卷测量的攻击性特质与大五儿童问卷测量的人格特征之间的关系，并记录了静息态大脑活动（低频波动的分数幅度 [fALFF] ）和使用功能磁共振成像的静息态功能连接（rsFC）。目前的结果表明，攻击性特质与宜人性呈负相关，与神经质呈正相关。大脑分析显示，攻击倾向较高的儿童 fALFF 较低，主要集中在左侧颞上回、右侧海马旁回和左侧边缘上回。身体攻击性和总体攻击性与右侧海马旁回和右侧壳核之间的 rsFC 呈负相关。进一步的分析表明，该 rsFC 可以调节神经质对总攻击性的影响。此外，结果表明，童年中期攻击行为的神经发育机制存在性别差异。总体而言，我们的研究结果表明，攻击性儿童的宜人性较低，神经质较高，其潜在的神经系统主要与社会判断和同理心有关。