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1- Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran
2- Faculty of Animal Sciences and Marine Biology, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran
3- Institute for Science and Technology Studies, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran
4- Judiciary Research Institute, Criminology, Tehran, Iran
2- Faculty of Animal Sciences and Marine Biology, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran
3- Institute for Science and Technology Studies, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran
4- Judiciary Research Institute, Criminology, Tehran, Iran
Abstract:
Previous neuroimaging studies have rarely investigated hostility as a distinct cognitive–emotional dimension of aggression. Most research has focused on overall aggressive behavior without differentiating hostility from other behavioral components. Specifically, the neural correlates associated with hostility in adolescents diagnosed with externalizing disorders have not been thoroughly investigated. To fill this void, the current research focused on hostility — a fundamental psychological element of violence — and its neurofunctional foundations in adolescents. This study examined resting-state functional connectivity differences in adolescents with high and low hostility, focusing on brain networks related to emotion regulation, salience, and executive control using the BPAQ scale. We utilized seed-to-voxel and ROI-to-ROI fMRI models to examine rsFC in two groups of adolescents: 14 with externalizing disorders and 13 typically developing controls.Seed-to-voxel analysis showed greater rsFC in low-hostility adolescents within two clusters: left DLPFC (BA 9/46) and vmPFC (BA 10/11) compared to high-hostility peers.. Both target regions represent top-down emotional processing and social-affective processing, respectively, providing evidence of the lower hostility group being more efficient in regulating aggressive impulses. ROI-to-ROI analysis revealed significantly reduced connectivity in high-hostility adolescents, notably between DLPFC–amygdala and frontal midline–amygdala, indicating impaired emotion regulation. Decreased links were also found between dorsal attention and salience networks, visual–limbic regions, and between cerebellar and medial prefrontal areas.. These differences reinforce disrupted functioning of conceptually relevant executive and attentional networks, as well as affective and socio-emotional networks in adolescents with increased hostility. We perceive these findings collectively as a neurobiological difference contrast between low hostility and high hostility, and notice that decreased connectivity of both the prefrontal network and salience network may represent targets for neurotherapeutic interventions to decrease aggression in children and adolescents with externalizing problems.
Type of Study: Original |
Subject:
Cognitive Neuroscience
Received: 2025/07/21 | Accepted: 2025/10/26
Received: 2025/07/21 | Accepted: 2025/10/26
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