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. 2021 Oct:165:108195.
doi: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2021.108195. Epub 2021 Sep 27.

Neural mechanisms of intimate partner aggression

David S Chester  1 , Alexandra M Martelli  2 , Samuel J West  2 , Emily N Lasko  2 , Phoebe Brosnan  3 , Anastasia Makhanova  4 , Andrea L Meltzer  5 , James K McNulty  5
Affiliations

Neural mechanisms of intimate partner aggression

David S Chester et al. Biol Psychol. 2021 Oct.

Abstract

People sometimes hurt those they profess to love; yet our understanding of intimate partner aggression (IPA) and its causes remains incomplete. We examined brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in an ethnically and racially diverse sample of 50 female-male, monogamous romantic couples as they completed an aggression task against their intimate partner, a close friend, and a different-sex stranger. Laboratory and real-world IPA were uniquely associated with altered activity within and connectivity between cortical midline structures that subserve social cognition and the computation of value. Men's IPA most corresponded to lower posterior cingulate reactivity during provocation and women's IPA most corresponded to lower ventromedial prefrontal cortex activity during IPA itself. Actor-partner independence modeling suggested women's IPA may correspond to their male partner's neural reactivity to provocation. Broadly, these findings highlight the importance of self-regulatory functions of the medial cortex and away from effortful inhibition subserved by dorsolateral cortices.

Keywords: FMRI; Implicit partner attitudes; Intimate partner aggression; Intimate partner violence; Prefrontal cortex.

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Conflict of interest statement

Financial Disclosures

The authors report no financial interests or potential conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1,
Figure 1,
Conceptual Model of the Present Research
Figure 2,
Figure 2,
An Example of One Block of the MRI Aggression Task
Figure 3,
Figure 3,
Schematic of the Study’s Parallel Research Procedure
Figure 4 ,
Figure 4 ,
Raincloud and Box Plots of Participants’ Noise Blast Settings Across the MRI Aggression Task, by Target Note. Larger vertical lines indicate means.
Figure 5 ,
Figure 5 ,
Activity in Ventromedial and Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortices during Partner > Non-Partner Aggression Decisions, Which was Negatively Linked to Intimate Partner Aggression
Figure 6,
Figure 6,
VMPFC-Based Functional Connectivity With Dorsomedial Prefrontal Cortex During Partner > Non-Partner Aggression Decisions, Which was Positively Linked to Intimate Partner Aggression
Figure 7
Figure 7
Activity in Precuneus and Posterior Cingulate Cortex During Parametrically-Modulated Partner > Non-Partner Provocation Events That was Negatively Linked to Intimate Partner Aggression
Figure 8 ,
Figure 8 ,
Actor-Partner Independence Model, in Which Men’s Provocation-Related PCC Activity Predicted Less Intimate Partner Aggression Among Men Note. Values represent standardized path coefficients, parenthesized values represent standard errors of path coefficients. *p < .05, **p < .01.
Figure 9 ,
Figure 9 ,
Actor-Partner Independence Model, in Which IPA-Related VMPFC Activity Predicted Less Intimate Partner Aggression Among Women Note. Values represent standardized path coefficients, parenthesized values represent standard errors of path coefficients. *p < .05.
Figure 10 ,
Figure 10 ,
Actor-Partner Independence Model, in Which Men’s Provocation-Related PCC Activity Predicted Greater IPA-Related VMPFC Activity Among Men and Less IPA-Related VMPFC Activity Among Women Note. Values represent standardized path coefficients, parenthesized values represent standard errors of path coefficients. *p < .05, **p < .01.
Figure 11,
Figure 11,
Revised Conceptual Model
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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