ArticleBiological psychiatry2025
Mapping Lesion-Related Human Aggression to a Common Brain Network.
Article in Biological psychiatry, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- A Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation on Anger and Aggression.Aggressive behavior · 2025Pooled it
- Brain network mapping of structural and functional alterations associated with alexithymia.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Vasopressin 1a Receptor Antagonists for Pathological Aggression in Neurodegenerative and Other CNS Diseases.Biomedicines · 2026Review
- A novel early screening approach for MCI due to AD based on a "maze" hand-interaction kinetic paradigm.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Article
- Lesion network mapping of focal injury-related aggression finds two distinct network injury patterns.Brain communications · 2026Article
- Identifying Transdiagnostic Aggression Networks: The Role of Lesion Studies.Biological psychiatry · 2025Article
- Brain structural and functional damage network localization of COVID-19 survivors.Frontiers in neurologyArticle
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Authors and funding
11 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundAggression exacts a significant toll on human societies and is highly prevalent among neuropsychiatric patients. The neural mechanisms of aggression are unclear and treatment options are limited.
methodsUsing a recently validated lesion network mapping technique, we derived an aggression-associated network by analyzing data from 182 patients who had experienced penetrating head injuries during their service in the Vietnam War. To test whether damage to this lesion-derived network would increase the risk of aggression-related neuropsychiatric symptoms, we used the Harvard Lesion Repository (N = 852). To explore potential therapeutic relevance of this network, we used an independent deep brain stimulation dataset of 25 patients with epilepsy, in which irritability and aggression are known potential side effects.
resultsWe found that lesions associated with aggression occurred in many different brain locations but were characterized by a specific brain network defined by functional connectivity to a hub region in the right prefrontal cortex. This network involves positive connectivity to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, frontal pole, posterior cingulate cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, temporal-parietal junction, and lateral temporal lobe and negative connectivity to the amygdala, hippocampus, insula, and visual cortex. Among all 24 neuropsychiatric symptoms included in the Harvard Lesion Repository, criminality demonstrated the most alignment with our aggression-associated network. Deep brain stimulation site connectivity to this same network was associated with increased irritability.
conclusionsWe conclude that brain lesions associated with aggression map to a specific human brain circuit, and the functionally connected regions in this circuit provide testable targets for therapeutic neuromodulation.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.