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  • Original Article
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Genetic background of extreme violent behavior

Abstract

In developed countries, the majority of all violent crime is committed by a small group of antisocial recidivistic offenders, but no genes have been shown to contribute to recidivistic violent offending or severe violent behavior, such as homicide. Our results, from two independent cohorts of Finnish prisoners, revealed that a monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) low-activity genotype (contributing to low dopamine turnover rate) as well as the CDH13 gene (coding for neuronal membrane adhesion protein) are associated with extremely violent behavior (at least 10 committed homicides, attempted homicides or batteries). No substantial signal was observed for either MAOA or CDH13 among non-violent offenders, indicating that findings were specific for violent offending, and not largely attributable to substance abuse or antisocial personality disorder. These results indicate both low monoamine metabolism and neuronal membrane dysfunction as plausible factors in the etiology of extreme criminal violent behavior, and imply that at least about 5–10% of all severe violent crime in Finland is attributable to the aforementioned MAOA and CDH13 genotypes.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Auli Toivola for her contribution in the Sequenom Mass Array and MAOA VNTR genotyping and Aija Räsänen for secretarial assistance. The study was funded by the Finnish Ministry of Health and Social Affairs through the development fund for Niuvanniemi Hospital, Finland. Hanna M Ollila has received funds from Instrumentarium Science Foundation and Orion-Farmos Research Foundation. Kati Kristiansson has received grant from Orion-Farmos Research Foundation and Academy of Finland (grant number 250207).

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Tiihonen, J., Rautiainen, MR., Ollila, H. et al. Genetic background of extreme violent behavior. Mol Psychiatry 20, 786–792 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/mp.2014.130

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