Ángel Romero-Martínez

Objective: Even though previous research has identified the negative impact of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetration, less is known regarding the moderator factors that explain this association. In this study, we first aimed to assess whether there would be differences in terms of specific n...

Acquired brain injury is one of the leading causes of death in the world's adult population. Even though science has advanced enough to guarantee the survival of many of these patients, a large percentage have cognitive sequelae, so much so that neuropsychology was born to detect these alterations and, thus, develop cognitive training programs. Eve...

Polyvagal theory proposed that an autonomous nervous system imbalance might be characteristic of violent individuals, especially reduced parasympathetic or vagal tone. Accordingly, some studies concluded that when intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetrators deal with acute stress, they tend to present a sympathetic predominance over the parasympat...

Professionals and researchers have dedicated important efforts to understanding the underlying factors that explain the failure to complete interventions (dropout) and the recidivism of men convicted of intimate partner violence (IPV) against their female partners. There is a growing interest in measuring emotional decoding and empathic deficits in...

Empathy deficits have been proposed to be an important factor for intimate partner violence (IPV). IPV perpetrators have shown a differential change in salivary oxytocin (sOXT), testosterone (sT), and cortisol (sC), following empathic and stress tasks, compared to non-violent men. However, the influence of empathic deficits in those hormones after...

Throughout this chapter, the current knowledge regarding hormonal factors underlying intimate partner violence (IPV) has been summarized, paying special attention to the implication of testosterone, cortisol, and oxytocin involvement in this kind of violence. One of the main conclusions is that the baseline measurements of the above-mentioned hormo...

Purpose Current interventions for intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetrators are de-signed to reduce IPV recidivism by treating risk factors and increasing protective fac-tors. However, these interventions pay less attention to cognitive functioning in IPV perpetrators and how these variables interfere with the future risk of recidivism. There-fo...

Pop culture has used schizophrenia and other mental illnesses as a helpful narrative resource. However, this can stigmatize people who suffer from these illnesses, creating a distorted image. For example, the movie Joker (2019) can be misinterpreted and conclude that people with schizophrenia are potential murderers. Thus, We must pay attention to...

Previous research has pointed out the importance of neuropsychological impairments in intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetrators for reoffending/recidivism once treatment ends. However, less is known about whether substance misuse is associated with impairments or deficits, which facilitate recidivism. In this study, we first aimed to assess whet...

La cultura popular ha empleado la esquizofrenia y otras enfermedades mentales como un recurso narrativo útil. Sin embargo, esto puede llegar a estigmatizar a las personas que las padecen, creando una imagen errónea. Por ejemplo, la película Joker (2019) puede malinterpretarse y concluir que las personas con esquizofrenia son potenciales homicidas....

Introduction Scholars have established subcategories of aggressive behavior in order to better understand this construct. Specifically, a classification based on motivational underpinnings makes it possible to differentiate between reactive and proactive aggression. Whereas reactive aggression is characterized by emotional lability, which means it...

Intimate partner violence (IPV) has been linked to difficulties in socio-affective functions. Nevertheless, the underlying psychobiological mechanisms that might be responsible for them remain unclear. Oxytocin (OXT) stands out as an important hormone that may favor the salience of social information, due to its relevance in empathy and prosocial b...

A topic of interest is the way decoding and interpreting facial emotional expressions can lead to mutual understanding. Facial emotional expression is a basic source of information that guarantees the functioning of other higher cognitive processes (e.g., empathy, cooperativity, prosociali-ty, or decision-making, among others). In this regard, horm...

Cannabis use far exceeds the use of other illicit drugs, but less is known about its role in facilitating violence proneness. Hence, throughout this chapter, mechanisms will be presented that explain how cannabis, specifically THC, facilitates the perpetration of interpersonal violence and sometimes homicides. In fact, violence facilitation tends t...

Background: Only a few studies have paid attention to the ability of perpetrators of intimate partner violence (IPVAW) against women to cope with acute stress, including hormonal parameters. In fact, previous studies assessed how salivary testosterone (Tsal) and cortisol (Csal) changed after coping with an acute emotional stressor (directly relate...

It has been suggested that intimate partner violence (IPV) against women perpetrators present emotional dysregulations when dealing with acute stress, which in turn could help to explain their proneness to violence. Emotional regulation can be objectively measured by means of psychophysiological parameters/variables/indicators of autonomic nervous...

Objective: To our knowledge, no studies have considered whether neuropsychological performance moderates the relationship between Holtzworth-Munroe and Stuart’s intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) perpetrator typologies and treatment compliance and recidivism. Therefore, we first aimed to assess whether the typologies show differences i...

Desde la perspectiva biopsicosocial, la violencia es entendida como el resultado de una compleja interacción entre factores biológicos, psicológicos y sociales. Por ello, la Neurocriminología desempeña un papel crucial tanto en la prevención de la violencia como en el diagnóstico de las causas de un comportamiento violento y en las intervenciones q...

El tratamiento del trastorno por uso de alcohol requiere de una intervención multidisciplinar, puesto que se trata de un problema complejo y requiere de los conocimientos de muchos profesionales. Del mismo modo que la implicación activa del paciente en su recuperación. De hecho, cuanto mayor sea el número de facetas que se atiendan de este problema...

Empirical research has stated that Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) might underlie intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) perpetration. Even though there is a clear relationship between these two variables, it is still unknown how ADHD facilitates violence proneness. In this regard, psychophysiological variables such as skin...

The field of neurocriminology has proposed several treatments (e.g. pharmacological, brain surgery, androgen-deprivation therapy, neurofeedback…) to reduce violence proneness, but unfortunately their effectiveness has been limited due to their side-effects. Therefore, it is necessary to explore alternative techniques to improve patients’ behavioura...

There is increasing scientific interest in elucidating the biological mechanisms underlying cooperative behaviors. Humans have developed a high degree of complexity in their cooperativity, which has been defined as hyper-cooperativity. An interesting biological marker to study how two individuals are emotionally linked when they cooperate is their...

Intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) is a major public health problem, with an important mortality rate in women across the world. In this regard, it has been well established that drug misuse explains (at least in part) an increased risk of IPVAW perpetration. Even though alcohol is the most widely studied drug underlying IPVAW, other d...

Empirical evidence supports that individuals with alexithymia might be prone to certain types of violence such as intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW). Moreover, considering that alexithymia is directly involved in behavior regulation, problems due to identifying and regulating emotional states might be postulated as responsible, at leas...

La violencia humana ha estado presente en la sociedad desde los albores de la humanidad. Incluso la Biblia, texto clave en el devenir de la cultura occidental, la ubica en el mismo origen de nuestras interacciones biológicas y sociales al entender que una frustración muy intensa-la de Caín-puede motivarla y conducirla. De hecho, la violencia está p...

There is considerable interest in offering insight into the mechanisms that might explain why certain perpetrators of intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) drop out of interventions. Although several socio-demographic variables and attitudes towards IPVAW have been proposed as risk factors for IPVAW perpetrators’ dropout, less attention h...

Recent studies have highlighted the dysregulation of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity and its end products, cortisol and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), in women with a history of IPV victimization. These studies analyzed several coping styles, but they neglected to examine the use of violent strategies to confront IPV and the way...

Men who misuse alcohol tend to experience negative affect, which may entail difficulties in regulating emotions to cope effectively with stressful or anxiety-provoking situations, thus increasing the risk of alcohol relapse. This dysphoric state has been associated with alexithymia, which compromises an individual's abilities to acknowledge, recogn...

Introduction: Extensive research has made it possible to conclude that dysfunctions in serotoninergic transmission are associated with a tendency toward violence and behavioural dysregulations in humans. In this regard, it has been suggested that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), such as sertraline, which regulate the serotonin syste...

Attitudes about the acceptability of intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW) contribute to an increased risk of IPVAW perpetration, and these attitudes are common among IPVAW offenders. Research suggests that IPVAW offenders present cognitive deficits related to information processing. Little is known, however, about how these deficits are...

Clinical psychologists are interested in studying factors that interfere with the behavioral regulation of perpetrators of intimate partner violence against women (IPVAW), as well as the way these factors affect the risk of future recidivism after interventions designed for them ends. Although several variables have been proposed as risk factors fo...

Men who misuse alcohol tend to experience negative affect, which may entail difficulties in regulating emotions to effectively cope with stressful or anxiety-provoking situations, increasing the risk of alcohol relapse. This dysphoric state has been associated with alexithymia, which compromises an individual’s abilities to acknowledge, recognize,...

Introduction. There is growing scientific interest in understanding the biological mechanisms affecting and/or underlying violent behaviours in order to develop effective treatment and prevention programs. In recent years, neuroscientific research has tried to demonstrate whether the intrinsic activity within the brain at rest in the absence of any...

Eating disorders (ED) such as anorexia nervosa (AN) and bulimia nervosa (BN) have great social, economic, and healthcare relevance. It was recently observed that the typical behavioral alterations of these patients could be explained, at least partly, by certain cognitive deficits. For this reason, neuropsychological evaluations might contribute to...

Proactively aggressive individuals have been shown to present a different pattern of autonomic nervous system (ANS) dysregulation from that of individuals characterized by reactive violence. Although attempts have been made to classify intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetrators based on ANS reactivity to acute stress, subsequent studies have fail...

It has been stated that Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) increases the likelihood of risky behavior such as intimate partner violence (IPV), but the cognitive mechanisms that facilitate or underlie these types of behavior remain unexplained. In this regard, several authors have established that impulsivity and inattentive symptoms mi...

Intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetrators commonly exhibit deficits in a wide range of cognitive domains, such as attention, memory, and executive functions. Executive dysfunctions tend to be related to a preference for disadvantageous decisions, which could be explained by a pattern of focusing on positive outcomes (gains) while disregarding ne...

Introduction: Caring for a family member with a long-term illness is a significant source of chronic stress that might significantly accelerate the cognitive ageing of informal caregivers. Nevertheless, the absence of a defined theoretical body of literature on the neuropsychology of this population makes it difficult to understand what the charac...

Introduction: The empathic capacity is a field of research that has been studied from various disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, or ethology and recently the field of neuroscience has been added. Thus, there has been an increase in studies using structural and functional neuroimaging, which has allowed to establish the brain structures th...

Objectives Empathy (i.e., the ability to decode emotions, as well as cognitive and emotional empathy) is involved in moral reasoning, prosocial behaviour, social and emotional adequacy, mood and behaviour regulation. Hence, alterations in these functions could reduce behaviour control and the adoption of specific types of violence such as intimate...

It has been stated that Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) increases the likelihood of risky behaviors such as intimate partner violence (IPV), but the cognitive mechanisms that facilitate or underlie these types of behaviors remain unexplained. In this regard, several authors have established that impulsivity and inattentive symptoms...

Childhood Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) is the most common pediatric cancer. It currently has a high survival rate, but these patients have cognitive sequelae secondary to the disease, mainly due to the medical treatment received to prevent cancer recurrence. Therefore, it is necessary to implement specific cognitive rehabilitation programs fo...

Scarce studies have focused on the cognitive profile of chronic alcoholic men after long-term abstinence. Thus, we examined neuropsychological differences between long-term abstinent alcoholics for an average of 3.2 years (n = 40, LTAA; age = 45.55 ± 8.99) and matched for socio-demographic variables with non-alcoholic controls (n = 39; age = 42.05...

Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) have been consolidated in healthcare settings as a highly useful therapeutic approach. Numerous studies have demonstrated their positive influence on physical and psychological well-being. In contrast, the scientific evidence concerning the potential beneficial effects of mindfulness on biological variables su...

The authors would like to acknowledge an error in the results section of this paper. Figures 1 and 2 are inverted. Figure 1 shows the increase of salivary IgA levels and Figure 2 shows the decrease of salivary cortisol levels.

Introducción. La capacidad empática es un campo de investigación que se ha visto estudiado desde varias disciplinas como la psicología, la filosofía o la etología y, recientemente, la neurociencia. Recientemente, ha habido un incremento de interés en el estudio de la empatía y este ha convergido con el incremento de investigaciones que hacen uso de...

Introducción. De todas las personas expuestas a un evento traumático, solo un pequeño porcentaje de ellas desarrollará un trastorno por estrés postraumático (TEPT). Las neurociencias han sugerido la existencia de cierta predisposición genética que elevaría la vulnerabilidad para desarrollar el trastorno, así como la desregulación de múltiples siste...

Scarce studies have focused on the cognitive profile of chronic alcoholic men after long-term abstinence. Thus, the current study was designed to examine neuropsychological differences between long-term abstinent alcoholics for an average of 3.2 years (n=40, LTAA; age = 45.55+8.99) and matched for socio-demographic variables non-alcoholic controls...

Despite evidence on the cognitive deficits in intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetrators, current psychotherapeutic programs for IPV perpetrators have neglected the role of cognitive impairments in adherence to treatment and the risk of recidivism after intervention. The results presented in this article emphasize the importance of establishing s...

Despite extensive evidence of heterogeneity in intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetrator profiles, there has been little research into neuropsychological deficits which might help us understand differences within this violent population. Moreover, studies on this topic have not paid much attention to the role of alcohol abuse in neuropsychologica...

Caregivers have to cope repeatedly with acute stressors in their daily lives, and this is associated with disturbances in the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis and the immune system. Such disturbances could contribute to the development of health problems in informal caregivers of people with chronic illnesses, such as eating disorders (EDs...

Caring for offspring diagnosed with eating disorders (EDs) puts caregivers under high levels of chronic stress, which have negative consequences for their health. Unfortunately, caregivers have received little attention from mental health professionals. Chronic stress experienced by informal caregivers has been associated with the alteration of bod...

Humans need social interaction with others for survival. Competition and cooperation are two somewhat opposed interpersonal strategies that help us to achieve both individual and shared aims and objectives. The aim of this research was to study whether autonomic activity is a good indicator of emotional activation in response to social interaction...

As postulated by the stress process model, chronically stressed individuals, such as caregivers of people with chronic psychological disorders, have poorer cognitive performance and higher age-related cognitive decline than individuals not exposed to chronic stress. When analysing this topic in caregivers, the majority of research has been conducte...

Cooperation and competition are two somewhat different strategies for interpersonal social interaction that help us achieve both individual and shared aims and objectives. There is a gap in the literature analyzing the effect of these types of social interactions, especially in cooperation, on autonomous nervous system responses using non-invasive...

A previous study analyzed how being forced to cooperate or compete without contemplates participants’ preferences or skills between strangers in a face-to-face same-gender dyad affects their salivary cortisol (Csal) or stress response to a laboratory task. Moreover, during the tasks participants were not allowed to talk, they should communicate wit...

SUMARIO • La neurocriminología: de la investigación científica a las aplicaciones prácticas • Neuroética y legislación • Neurocriminología positiva: procesos positivos, prevención e intervención RESUMEN La neurocriminología persigue aplicar la metodología y las técnicas de estudio de las neurociencias para comprender, predecir, tratar e incluso pre...

Intimate partner violence (IPV) has often been linked to alcohol consumption. Alcohol abuse affects cognitive processing through its effects on the prefrontal cortex, generating influence in mental rigidity (MR). This study analyzes the influence of MR as a predisposing factor to violence. The sample consisted of 136 men with a history of IPV. Part...

Competition and cooperation are two somewhat opposed strategies for interpersonal social interaction that help us to achieve both individual and shared goals. The main aim of this study was to explore which type of social interaction (cooperative or competitive) is more stressful in a face-to-face same-sex dyad in healthy young participants (n=178)...

En este estudio se analizan las tasas de abandono del tratamiento en hombres inmigrantes latinoamericanos con problemas de consumo de alcohol (PCA) derivados a programas de intervención con maltratadores y se explora si aquellos que consiguen finalizar la intervención se diferencian de los que no tienen PCA en variables resultado de la intervención...

Differences in aggressive behavior could be partially explained by differential prenatal exposure to testosterone (T). A peripheral marker of prenatal T exposure is the 2D:4D ratio, which has shown a negative correlation with self-reported aggression in violent men. This study tested the direct association of the 2D:4D ratio with anger expression a...

Caring for an offspring with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has been related to high stress levels and health disturbances. However, a protective effect against these negative health outcomes has been described in high-resilient caregivers. In this context, the main aim of the present study was to assess the association between resilient coping...

Caring for an offspring diagnosed with a psychological chronic disorder is used in research as a model of chronic stress. Indeed, it is usually associated with disturbances in the salivary cortisol (Csal) levels of the caregiver. An imbalance between salivary testosterone (Tsal) and Csal levels is a marker of proneness to social aggression. Given t...

Several studies have reported impairments in decoding emotional facial expressions in intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetrators. However, the mechanisms that underlie these impaired skills are not well known. Given this gap in the literature, we aimed to establish whether IPV perpetrators (n = 18) differ in their emotion decoding process, attent...

Seeking to prevent antisocial behavior, the study of the biological basis of empathy has gained certain relevance in recent years. Some studies have pointed out the involvement of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA) and cortisol in empathy, but few have studied the relationship between the first and Cortisol Awakening Response (CAR), as a...

Caring for offspring diagnosed with eating disorders (EDs) entails being under high chronic stress, with negative consequences for health. However, most previous research has only evaluated self-report measures of health, biological markers being poorly studied. In this regard, the evaluation of the cortisol awakening response (CAR) could add signi...

Caring for an offspring with an eating disorder (ED) is associated with high levels of distress, and health problems. Indeed, ED caregivers have to cope with a range of challenges related to their caring role, which represents a chronic stress situation. This tends to alter body homeostasis and caregivers’ health status. This study aimed to analyse...

The extant evidence suggests a robust positive association between expression (anger expression-out) and suppression (anger expression-in) of anger and compromised health. Nevertheless, the underlying psychobiological mechanisms which explain these relationships are not well understood. This study examined whether anger expression would predict gen...

Research assessing the effectiveness of intervention programs for intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetrators has increased considerably in recent years. However, most of it has been focused on the analysis of psychological domains, neglecting neuropsychological variables and the effects of alcohol consumption on these variables. This study evalua...

Caring for children diagnosed with a chronic psychological disorder such as an eating disorder (ED) can be used as a model of chronic stress. This kind of stress has been reported to have deleterious effects on caregivers’ cognition, particularly in verbal declarative memory of women caregivers. Moreover, high depressive mood and variations in test...

Violence and/or delinquency in women have been masked to some extent by society. Thus, the main goal of this work is to deeply analyse the published works on these matters, in order to understand this phenomenon from a neurobiological perspective. Firstly, the theory of the cycle of violence as a facilitating mechanism of violence in women will be...

Few studies have examined therelationship between the cortisol awakening response (CAR) and aggression inhealthy youth adults. This study analyzes this relationship in 83 women (38 inluteal phase and 45 in follicular phase of menstrual cycle) and 20 men.Salivary-free cortisol measures of the CAR were obtained immediately followingawakening and 30,...

Several studies have provided evidence that antisocial, borderline and narcissistic personality traits of intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetrators significantly increase proneness to violence. In addition, an imbalance between testosterone (T) and cortisol (C) levels has been observed in this population, making individuals prone to violence. We...

Autistic traits are characterized by social and communication problems, restricted, repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests and activities. The relation between autistic traits and personality characteristics is largely unknown. This study focused on the relation between five specific autistic traits measured with the abridged ve...

Cocaine abuse, as well as prenatal exposure to cocaine, could be key factors in the expression of violent behaviour. Neuropsychological impairments, sex differences and the concurrent abuse of cocaine and alcohol have been suggested as facilitation mechanisms. To review and recapitulate the results obtained on the relationship between neuropsycholo...

Identifying markers of psychobiological predisposition to violence opens the door to prevention and intervention in the field of male violence against women. Currently, we have no effective drugs to treat abusers of women, but the development of psychotherapeutic intervention programmes and neuropsychological rehabilitation marks a promising path.

Antisocial, borderline and narcissistic personality traits have been described as characteristics of intimate partner violence (IPV) perpetrators. Further, deficits in cognitive empathy and impairments in emotional decoding processes may at least partially explain conduct disorders and social dysfunction in general. However, previous research has n...

Caring for people with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has been reported to have a negative impact on the caregivers' health. One of the most studied risk factors is the severity of the autistic symptomatology of the care recipient, greater severity of symptoms having been associated with poorer health outcomes in caregivers. However, to our know...

The existence of mild forms of autistic-like characteristics in parents of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) has been defined as a broader autistic phenotype (BAP). Excessive prenatal exposure to testosterone (T) seems to play a role in its development. The aims of this study were to characterize whether ASD parents show masculinized b...

Introducción. El abuso de la cocaína, así como la exposición prenatal a la misma parece ser un factor relevante en el desencadenamiento de comportamientos violentos. Los déficits neuropsicológicos, así como el género y la combinación con el alcohol, serían los posibles mecanismos facilitadores. Objetivo. Revisar y recapitular los resultados obtenid...