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Dopamine and aggression

Just because two things are correlated, does not mean either of the two causes the other directly. The brain is far more complex than that.

Dopamine is related to confidence. You need confidence to exert your aggression, otherwise one tends to bottle its related emotion (anger) up inside.

This is an example of possible speculation: you could perhaps say that all aggressive people are confident enough to enact their anger (which has likely developed through the way they were raised and developed) because they have raised dopamine levels due to, for example, a genetic predisposition.

I doubt you could say that all people with raised dopamine levels are aggressive.. I'll believe that when I'm shown the evidence.
 
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Hammilton said:
Yeah, because drugs have no effect on mood or behavior..

stupidest thing I've read in weeks
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Why the harsh words Hammilton? People will be more inclined to believe/respect you if you treat them nicely. I don't see why you were so upset that I pointed out a little bit of redundancy on your part.

I did not say drugs have no effect on mood or behaviour. You drew that conclusion from what I said.

Perhaps I should have said, no drug can SOLELY be blamed for the aggression. I thought that was fairly evident from the rest of my post

i.e. "it is the personality that is the cause of the aggression, and the drug is merely a catalyst so to speak."

But hey, that's just me. Each to their own. Regardless, jolly good job of picking something in my post which you could ridicule. It certainly showed me!
 
Why the harsh words Hammilton? People will be more inclined to believe/respect you if you treat them nicely.
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Then they're stupid. What matters is being right.
 
^ Yes.. many people are stupid. Too bad that you have to live and interact with them on a daily basis.. therefore tact actually does matter.

If you saw two people arguing, one of whom was remaining calm and the other of which was getting angry, yelling and throwing his arms about, who would you guess was winning the argument? I'll leave that one up to your superior mind to figure out.

Furthermore, you weren't right, so it looks like you fail on both fronts. You took one sentence in my post out of context, and even then you had to draw an abstruse conclusion from that single sentence in order to make me seem vaguely incorrect.

Because anyone who is not an idiot can see that

Therefore the drug can not be blamed for the aggression. = drugs have no effect on mood or behavior..

is completely illogical.

I hope you don't let your tantrum get you too fired up or mummy may have to change the diaper :(.
 
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permastoned said:
Just because two things are correlated, does not mean either of the two causes the other directly. The brain is far more complex than that.

Dopamine is related to confidence. You need confidence to exert your aggression, otherwise one tends to bottle its related emotion (anger) up inside.

This is an example of possible speculation: you could perhaps say that all aggressive people are confident enough to enact their anger (which has likely developed through the way they were raised and developed) because they have raised dopamine levels due to, for example, a genetic predisposition.

I doubt you could say that all people with raised dopamine levels are aggressive.. I'll believe that when I'm shown the evidence.
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It is pretty much widely accepted that violence causes a person to experience reward in much the same way as recreational drugs. Do you dispute this?
 
is completely illogical.
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If drugs can effect mood and behavior, than they can have a direct impact on violence. All you're working on is a weak semantic argument that has no data to support it. I have lots and lots of data to support some drugs causing increased violence.

No one is waving their hands around, sorry.
 
This is analogous to the "Guns don't kill people: people kill people" argument. That statement can neither be proven nor disproven because the only thing directly responsible for killing a person is the global cessation of metabolism. In much the same way, the only thing directly responsible for aggression, rage, violence, etc is the dynamic series of physiological processes necessary for aggression to take place. A combatant may have elevated levels of catecholamines because they are instrumental to the forceful coordination of his musculoskeletal system. Endorphin, serotonin, GABA, etc: all components of the same machinery. We would've never made it as a species if we couldn't supress pain or modulate stress during a physical battle. Geneticists recently argued that 1 of every 200 humans is a descendant of Genghis Khan. It's not unreasonable to say that we are all the spawn of killers.

And then so then, if substance x does not produce typical effect f(x), don't be surprised if the f(x) is actually f(x,y,z, t, n, g(x), h(x), g(h(x)), etc). There's many an anecdote of everlasting love originating from a shared crack pipe. Assassins are named after hashish, and even Goering was a morphine addict.
 
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25109457-12377,00.html


Doubts over amphetamine, violence link

February 26, 2009
Article from: Australian Associated Press

AMPHETAMINE use may not increase the risk of violence, according to new research released by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research.

In a study of 99,262 offenders aged 15 or older, the bureau found that offenders with a prior amphetamine-related conviction were no more likely to commit a violent offence than those with no prior drugs charges.

Only 1.7 per cent, or 1660 of those convicted of one or more offences in 2005, had been charged with an amphetamine-related offence in the preceding five years, the bureau found.

Despite casting doubt on the assumed link between amphetamines and violence, bureau director Don Weatherburn played down the findings.

"Our measure of amphetamine use tells us nothing about the frequency of such use or the average quantities being consumed by an amphetamine user," he said.

"Further research is needed looking at the relationship between these factors and violence before we have a clear picture of how amphetamine use affects the risk of involvement in violence."

However, those with a prior non-amphetamine drug charge were more likely to be charged with a violent act, the study found.

"The main drug-related finding was that convicted offenders with a prior non-amphetamine drug charge had moderately greater odds of having a future violent charge than those with no prior drug charges," the report said.

But those most likely to commit a violent offence were those who had committed six or more offences of a non-violent, non-drug nature.

They had a 4.5 times higher chance of being charged with a violent act, the report found.

"The strongest predictor of a future violent charge was having a greater number of charges relating to non-violent/non-drug offences," the report said.

"The odds of having a future charge for a violent offence were over four times greater for a convicted offender with six or more prior non-violent/non-drug charges than an offender with no prior non-violent/non drug charges."
 
Hammilton said:
If drugs can effect mood and behavior, than they can have a direct impact on violence. All you're working on is a weak semantic argument that has no data to support it. I have lots and lots of data to support some drugs causing increased violence.

No one is waving their hands around, sorry.
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You still don't get it, do you? All I said was that they are not solely responsible for the aggression, rather it is a combination of factors;genetic predisopsition, childhood abuse/violence, socioeconomic status, DRUG USE etc.

fin. No more spiteful words please..
 
Thank you for posting this. Very interesting.

permastoned said:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25109457-12377,00.html


Doubts over amphetamine, violence link

February 26, 2009
Article from: Australian Associated Press

AMPHETAMINE use may not increase the risk of violence, according to new research released by the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research.

In a study of 99,262 offenders aged 15 or older, the bureau found that offenders with a prior amphetamine-related conviction were no more likely to commit a violent offence than those with no prior drugs charges.

Only 1.7 per cent, or 1660 of those convicted of one or more offences in 2005, had been charged with an amphetamine-related offence in the preceding five years, the bureau found.

Despite casting doubt on the assumed link between amphetamines and violence, bureau director Don Weatherburn played down the findings.

"Our measure of amphetamine use tells us nothing about the frequency of such use or the average quantities being consumed by an amphetamine user," he said.

"Further research is needed looking at the relationship between these factors and violence before we have a clear picture of how amphetamine use affects the risk of involvement in violence."

However, those with a prior non-amphetamine drug charge were more likely to be charged with a violent act, the study found.

"The main drug-related finding was that convicted offenders with a prior non-amphetamine drug charge had moderately greater odds of having a future violent charge than those with no prior drug charges," the report said.

But those most likely to commit a violent offence were those who had committed six or more offences of a non-violent, non-drug nature.

They had a 4.5 times higher chance of being charged with a violent act, the report found.

"The strongest predictor of a future violent charge was having a greater number of charges relating to non-violent/non-drug offences," the report said.

"The odds of having a future charge for a violent offence were over four times greater for a convicted offender with six or more prior non-violent/non-drug charges than an offender with no prior non-violent/non drug charges."
Click to expand...
 
To formulate the issue more clearly, do drugs amplify violence where the propensity for it was already there or do they cause violence in people with no predisposition? I find the former much more plausible. After all, they only cause quantitative changes in neurological processes, don't they?
 
low levels of serotonin have been shown to increase impulsivity and aggression, and a disproprtionate number of violent offenders in prison have low serotonin levels

http://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/15/3/294

dopamine is not the issue the lack of serotonin to control it is

rather than looking to chemistry how about looking towards psychology

and on a personal level amphetamine makes me want to punch people very quickly. for whatever reason i just get really aggressive on it. i have never tried meth due to its relative lack of popularity in my area.
 
^Quote from the abstract you linked to:

"no simple one-to-one causal relationship has been found between this biological variable and aggression"
"Serotonergic dysfunction will influence aggression differently, depending on the individual's impulse control, emotional regulation, and social abilities."

Remember that correlation and causation are not the same thing.

For example, a disproportionate number of violent prison inmates are buffed up and muscular. Would you say that weight lifting causes aggression?

In your case, do you have aggressive thoughts when sober too? Or just on amphetamine?
 
Artificial Emotion said:
But anger IS caused by increased dopamine levels. Or maybe it's the other way around, in which case dopaminergic drugs wouldn't necessarily cause rage. I just know that the link between anger and elevated dopamine levels in the brain has been established - this is how some people can become addicted to violence.
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I don't know about that. Dopamine increases happiness and confidence and would make the person forget about anger. If anything anger is more caused by low dopamine levels and high levels of epinephrine and cortisol(stress hormones), maybe norepinephrine too.
 
Artificial Emotion said:
They've already established the link. I first heard about in a documentary I saw on Channel 4 a few weeks ago (UK).
Click to expand...

I would have to be more of a happy anger then. Whenever I got irritable on stimulants I was always still happy, even if I was angry. Like I was being angry for the sake of seeming more powerful and prideful, not really angry in regards. its hard to explain
 
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