(Ana Sandoiu/ Medical News Today) — Understanding the neuroscience of drunken aggression might help to reduce alcohol-related crime. New research uses brain scans to investigate why people can become aggressive after they’ve had a few.
The new study was led by Thomas Denson, of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, and the results are now published in the journal Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience.
As Denson and colleagues write in their paper, inebriation is involved in around half of all violent crimes.
Homicide, physical and sexual assault, domestic violence, and child abuse are only some of the crimes associated with heavy alcohol use.
However, combined with an aggressive predisposition, even just a drink or two can incite violence. And previous neuroscientific studies have attempted to explore the brain mechanisms behind this phenomenon. (…)