Citation

Chen B, Gu T, Ma B, Zheng G, Ke B, Zhang X, Zhang L, Wang Y, Hu L, Chen Y, Qiu J, Nie S. J. Mol. Neurosci. 2014; 52(4): 481-486.

Affiliation

School of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong, China.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s12031-013-0160-z

PMID

24243082

Abstract

Accumulating evidence suggests that the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis might play a major role in genetic susceptibility of aggressive behavior. The aim of the present study is to investigate the association between corticotrophin-releasing hormone receptor 1 (CRHR1) gene and aggressive behavior in Chinese southwest Han population. Participants consist of 282 healthy controls and 177 violent criminals (including robbery and intentional injury, which represent for aggressive behavior towards property and aggressive behavior towards others). Three tag single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of CRHR1 gene including rs4458044, rs242924, and rs1768996 were genotyped using improved multiplex ligase detection reaction (iMLDR) methods. Single-locus analysis revealed that none of the studied SNPs was significantly associated with the risk of aggressive behavior; however, haplotype analysis showed that a haplotype GGA significantly increased the susceptibility of aggressive behavior towards others with an odds ratios equal to 3.32 (p = 0.003). The present results, for the first time, indicate that the CRHR1 gene polymorphism is significantly associated with aggressive behavior in Chinese southwest Han population. Subjects with GGA haplotype have an increased susceptibility to aggressive behavior towards others.

Language: en