A systematic review of the heritability of specific psychopathic traits using Hare's two-factor model of psychopathy.

Background: There have been no systematic reviews that investigated the heritability of the two-factor model of psychopathy: interpersonal-affective and behavioral. Our review aimed, first, to examine the heritability of general psychopathic traits and, second, if genetic influences were suggested, to determine the heritability of various traits related to the interpersonal-affective and behavioral factors of psychopathy.

Method: A systematic literature search was conducted using articles from the PsycINFO, Embase, Global Health, Medline, PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus databases (January of 1980 to December of 2015) in order to identify eligible literature that reported on the heritability of psychopathy-related traits.

Cerebral spectroscopic and oxidative stress studies in patients with schizophrenia who have dangerously violently offended.

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.

Regional grey matter volumetric changes in forensic schizophrenia patients: an MRI study comparing the brain structure of patients who have seriously and violently offended with that of patients who have not.

Background: The aim was to carry out the first voxel-based morphometry study of grey matter changes in the whole brain in schizophrenia associated with a history of seriously and violently offending.

Methods: Structural cerebral magnetic resonance imaging scans of 26 patients with schizophrenia were analyzed using voxel-based morphometry: 13 of the patients had seriously and violently offended directly as a result of schizophrenia prior to admission, the offences consisting of homicide, attempted murder or wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm; the other 13 patients did not have a history of violence. There was no history of comorbid psychoactive substance misuse disorder in any of the patients.

A comparison of oxidative stress in smokers and non-smokers: an in vivo human quantitative study of n-3 lipid peroxidation.

Background: Cigarette smoking is believed to cause oxidative stress by several mechanisms, including direct damage by radical species and the inflammatory response induced by smoking, and would therefore be expected to cause increased lipid peroxidation. The aim was to carry out the first study of the relationship of smoking in humans to the level of n-3 lipid peroxidation indexed by the level of ethane in exhaled breath.

Methods: Samples of alveolar air were obtained from 11 smokers and 18 non-smokers.

Evidence from in vivo 31-phosphorus magnetic resonance spectroscopy phosphodiesters that exhaled ethane is a biomarker of cerebral n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid peroxidation in humans.

Background: This study tested the hypothesis that exhaled ethane is a biomarker of cerebral n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid peroxidation in humans. Ethane is released specifically following peroxidation of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids. We reasoned that the cerebral source of ethane would be the docosahexaenoic acid component of membrane phospholipids.

Increased levels of ethane, a non-invasive, quantitative, direct marker of n-3 lipid peroxidation, in the breath of patients with schizophrenia.

This study directly assessed whether there was a change in the level of exhaled ethane, which provides a non-invasive, quantitative, direct measure of n-3 lipid peroxidation, in the breath of patients with schizophrenia. Samples of alveolar air were obtained from 20 subjects with schizophrenia and 23 age- and sex-matched healthy control subjects. The air samples were analyzed for ethane using mass spectrometry.

Brain cell membrane motion-restricted phospholipids in patients with schizophrenia who have seriously and dangerously violently offended.

This study directly assessed, for the first time, whether there was a change in brain cell motion-restricted membrane phospholipids in vivo in male forensic patients with schizophrenia who had seriously and violently offended (homicide, attempted murder, or wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm) while psychotic, by quantification of the broadband resonance signal from 31-phosphorus neurospectroscopy scans. Cerebral 31-phosphorus magnetic resonance spectroscopy was carried out in 15 such patients, who suffered from positive symptoms of schizophrenia, and in 12 age- and sex-matched normal control subjects. Spectra were obtained from 70 x 70 x 70 mm(3) voxels using an image-selected in vivo spectroscopy pulse sequence.