Oxidative Stress and Violent Behavior

"Homicide, attempted murder , wounding with intent to cause grievous
bodily harm"

Cerebral spectroscopic and oxidative stress studies in patients with
schizophrenia who have dangerously violently offended. Treasaden IH,
Puri BK
BMC Psychiatry 2008.:S7.

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to bring together all the
results of in vivo studies of ethane excretion and cerebral
spectroscopy in patients with schizophrenia who have dangerously
seriously violently offended in order to determine the extent to which
they shed light on the degree to which the membrane phospholipid
hypothesis and the actions of free radicals and other reactive species
are associated with cerebral pathophysiological mechanisms in this
group of patients.
METHODS: The patients investigated were inpatients from a medium
secure unit with a DSM-IV-TR diagnosis of schizophrenia. There was no
history of alcohol dependency or any other comorbid psychoactive
substance misuse disorder. Expert psychiatric opinion, accepted in
court, was that all these patients had violently offended directly as
a result of schizophrenia prior to admission. These offences consisted
of homicide, attempted murder or wounding with intent to cause
grievous bodily harm. Excreted ethane was analyzed and quantified by
gas chromatography and mass spectrometry (m/z = 30). 31-phosphorus
magnetic resonance spectroscopy data were obtained at a magnetic field
strength of 1.5 T using an image-selected in vivo spectroscopy
sequence (TR = 10 s; 64 signal averages localized on a 70 x 70 x 70
mm3 voxel).
RESULTS: Compared with age- and sex-matched controls, in the patient
group the mean alveolar ethane level was higher (p < 0.0005), the mean
cerebral beta-nucleotide triphosphate was lower (p < 0.04) and the
mean gamma-nucleotide triphosphate was higher (p < 0.04). There was no
significant difference between the two groups in respect of
phosphomonoesters, phosphodiesters or broad resonances.
CONCLUSION: Our results are not necessarily inconsistent with the
membrane phospholipid hypothesis, given that the patients studied
suffered predominantly from positive symptoms of schizophrenia. The
results suggest that there is increased cerebral mitochondrial
oxidative phosphorylation in patients with schizophrenia who have
dangerously and seriously violently offended, with an associated
increase in oxygen flux and subsequent electron 'leakage' from the
electron transport chain leading to the formation of superoxide
radicals and other reactive oxygen species. In turn, these reactive
species might cause increased lipid peroxidation in neuroglial
membranes, thereby accounting for the observation of increased ethane
excretion.

BMC psychiatry [BMC Psychiatry]
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