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MolecularPsychiatryAbstractofarticle:Geneticbackgroundofextremeviolentbehavior

OriginalArticle
MolecularPsychiatryadvanceonlinepublication28October2014doi:10.1038/mp.2014.130

Geneticbackgroundofextremeviolentbehavior
JTiihonen1,2,3,19,MRRautiainen3,19,HMOllila3,4,ERepoTiihonen2,MVirkkunen5,6,
APalotie7,8,9,10,11,OPietilinen3,KKristiansson3,MJoukamaa12,HLauerma3,13,14,
JSaarela15,STyni16,HVartiainen16,JPaananen17,DGoldman18andTPaunio3,5,6
1DepartmentofClinicalNeuroscience,KarolinskaInstitutet,Stockholm,Sweden
2 DepartmentofForensicPsychiatry,UniversityofEasternFinland,NiuvanniemiHospital,Kuopio,Finland
3 NationalInstituteforHealthandWelfare,Helsinki,Finland
4StanfordUniversityCenterforSleepSciences,PaloAlto,CA,USA
5DepartmentofPsychiatry,UniversityofHelsinki,InstituteofClinicalMedicine,Helsinki,Finland
6DepartmentofPsychiatry,HelsinkiUniversityCentralHospital,Helsinki,Finland
7WellcomeTrustSangerInstitute,Hinxton,Cambridgeshire,England
8AnalyticandTranslationalGeneticsUnit,DepartmentofMedicine,MassachusettsGeneralHospital,Boston,MA,USA
9PrograminMedicalandPopulationGenetics,BroadInstituteofMITandHarvard,Cambridge,MA,USA
10InstituteforMolecularMedicineFinland,UniversityofHelsinki,Helsinki,Finland
11Psychiatric&NeurodevelopmentalGeneticsUnit,DepartmentofPsychiatry,MassachusettsGeneralHospital,Boston,

MA,USA
12 SocialPsychiatryUnit,SchoolofHealthSciences,UniversityofTampere,Finland
13 PsychiatricHospitalforPrisoners,Turku,Finland
14UniversityofTurku,Turku,Finland
15FinnishGenomeCenter,Helsinki,Finland
16TheCriminalSanctionsAgency,Helsinki,Finland
17UniversityofEasternFinland,BioinformaticsCenter,Kuopio,Finland
18LaboratoryofNeurogenetics,NationalInstituteonAlcoholAbuseandAlcoholism,Rockville,MD,USA
Correspondence:ProfessorJTiihonen,KarolinskaInstitutet,DepartmentofClinicalNeuroscience,ByggnadR5,
Stockholm,S17176,SwedenProfessorTPaunio,NationalInstituteforHealthandWelfare,POBox30,FI00271,Finland.
Email:jari.tiihonen@ki.seortiina.paunio@thl.fi
19Theseauthorscontributedequaliytothiswork.

Received26June2014Revised25August2014Accepted28August2014
Advanceonlinepublication28October2014

Abstract
Indevelopedcountries,themajorityofallviolentcrimeiscommittedbyasmall
groupofantisocialrecidivisticoffenders,butnogeneshavebeenshownto
contributetorecidivisticviolentoffendingorsevereviolentbehavior,suchas
homicide.Ourresults,fromtwoindependentcohortsofFinnishprisoners,
revealedthatamonoamineoxidaseA(MAOA)lowactivitygenotype(contributing
tolowdopamineturnoverrate)aswellastheCDH13gene(codingforneuronal
membraneadhesionprotein)areassociatedwithextremelyviolentbehavior(at
least10committedhomicides,attemptedhomicidesorbatteries).Nosubstantial
signalwasobservedforeitherMAOAorCDH13amongnonviolentoffenders,
indicatingthatfindingswerespecificforviolentoffending,andnotlargely
attributabletosubstanceabuseorantisocialpersonalitydisorder.Theseresults
indicatebothlowmonoaminemetabolismandneuronalmembranedysfunction
asplausiblefactorsintheetiologyofextremecriminalviolentbehavior,andimply
thatatleastabout510%ofallsevereviolentcrimeinFinlandisattributableto
theaforementionedMAOAandCDH13genotypes.
http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/mp2014130a.html

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MolecularPsychiatry
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MolecularPsychiatryAbstractofarticle:Geneticbackgroundofextremeviolentbehavior

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