Citation

Lyvers M. Exp. Clin. Psychopharmacol. 2000; 8(4): 607-8; discussion 612-7.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. mike_lyvers@bond.edu.au

Copyright

(Copyright © 2000, American Psychological Association)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

11127433

Abstract

P. R. Giancola's (2000) thesis that the alcohol-aggression relationship can be explained by alcohol-induced disruption of executive cognitive functions mediated by the prefrontal cortex is critically examined. At moderate doses, alcohol has been reported to increase aggression in animals as diverse as fish, rats, cats, monkeys, and humans. Although alcohol depresses prefrontal cortex activity and disrupts executive cognitive performance in humans, alcohol's anxiolytic actions, and its disinhibiting effects on subcortical structures implicated in anger and aggression, may be at least as important as the higher cognitive functions cited by Giancola in accounting for the alcohol-aggression relationship. Other drugs that alter prefrontal cortex activity have also been reported to influence aggressive responding in humans and other animals, and implications of this are briefly discussed.

Language: en