Biological Psychiatry
Volume 36, Issue 6 , Pages 365-373, 15 September 1994

Selective reductions in prefrontal glucose metabolism in murderers☆

  • Adrian Raine

      Affiliations

    • Corresponding Author InformationAddress reprint request to Adrian Raine, Department of Psychology, S.G.M. Building, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-1061, USA
    • Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA
    • ,
  • Monte S. Buchsbaum

      Affiliations

    • Department of Psychiatry, University of California, Irvine, USA
    • ,
  • Jill Stanley

      Affiliations

    • Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA
    • ,
  • Steven Lottenberg

      Affiliations

    • Department of Psychiatry, University of California, Irvine, USA
    • ,
  • Leonard Abel

      Affiliations

    • Department of Psychiatry, University of California, Irvine, USA
    • ,
  • Jacqueline Stoddard

      Affiliations

    • Department of Psychiatry, University of California, Irvine, USA

Received 5 April 1993; received in revised form 12 November 1993

Abstract 

This study tests the hypothesis that seriously violent offenders pleading not guilty by reason of insanity or incompetent to stand trial are characterized by prefrontal dysfunction. This hypothesis was tested in a group of 22 subjects accused of murder and 22 age-matched and gender-matched controls by measuring local cerebral uptake of glucose using positron emission tomography during the continuous performance task. Murderers had significantly lower glucose metabolism in both lateral and medial prefrontal cortex relative to controls. No group differences were observed for posterior frontal, temporal, and parietal glucose metabolism, indicating regional specificity for the prefrontal deficit. Group differences were not found to be a function of raised levels of left-handedness, schizophrenia, ethnic minority status, head injury, or motivation deficits in the murder group. These preliminary results suggest that deficits localized to the prefrontal cortex may be related to violence in a selected group of offenders, although further studies are needed to establish the generalizability of these findings to violent offenders in the community.

Keywords:  Violence, positron emission tomography, prefrontal, continuous performance tas, murder

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☆ This research was supported in part by finding from the Southern California Injury Prevention Research Center (Center for Disease Control, Grant R49/CCR903622) and in part by a Research Scientist Development Award from NIH (1 KO2 MH01114-01) to the first author.

PII: 0006-3223(94)91211-4

Biological Psychiatry
Volume 36, Issue 6 , Pages 365-373, 15 September 1994

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