These researchers from the University of Iowa identify a cerebral marker associated with aggression in children. An important finding, documented in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry because it could help diagnose aggressive young children, much earlier, before their behavior becomes more ingrained.
This is a brain wave marker associated with aggression. Admittedly, aggressive behavior is frequent in young children, however some react in a neutral way and others act systematically in an aggressive way. This difference in behavior had never been explained before.
To identify this signature in children, the researchers recruited 153 young children and during individual sessions measured the activity of different types of brain waves (see visual below). As the children watched cartoons, the pitch of the tones changed, and the researchers measured the levels of the different types of brain waves accompanying each pitch change. This experiment was repeated with the same children at 30, 36 and 42 months of age. The experiment shows that children with a shorter peak in the P3 brain wave accompanying the pitch change are more aggressive than children with more pronounced P3 peaks. A difference qualified as “statistically significant”,
P3, a key indicator of aggressiveness:the identification of this brain marker associated with aggression in toddlers is based on the measurement of a type of brain waves in children aged 2.5 to 3.5 years. Analysis of these waves reveals that toddlers with lower peaks in the “P3” brain waves consistently behave more aggressively than other children. The P3 wave is one of a series of brain waves generated when a subject evaluates and reacts to a change in the environment, for example a change in cues (in tone for example) during a social interaction. . Previous research, but conducted primarily in adults, has shown that individuals with shorter P3 wave peaks when they face such changes tend to be more aggressive. The authors here suggest that P3 is a key indicator of aggression, also associated with depression and schizophrenia.
Grandchildren are less able to interpret changes in the environment and are more likely to misinterpret certain social information, which can cause them to react aggressively, the authors explain. A signature that will make it possible to detect the risk of aggression in early childhood and, in certain cases, to opt for more effective early interventions to stem aggression, explains the main author, Isaac Petersen, clinical psychologist, professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Iowa.
“ There are all kinds of ambiguous social signals in our environment. Children respond to the same social cues in different ways, and we believe this is related to differences in interpretation, neutral or hostile .”
