Hodgins Sheilagh

Université de Montréal | UdeM · Psychiatrie et Addictologie

Purpose: Community care replaced institutional care for people with psychosis without guidance about what constituted effective treatment. In a Swedish birth cohort, many of those who developed schizophrenia or bipolar disorder as community care was being implemented were subsequently convicted of violent and non-violent crimes. Studies from other...

Background The offspring of parents with bipolar disorder (OBD) are at higher risk of developing psychopathology than the offspring of parents with no affective disorder (control). In addition to genetic predisposition, childhood adversity and a stressful family environment are important risk factors for the OBD. Protective factors in parents, such...

Introduction Risk-allele carriers of a Monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) gene, short-allele (MAOA-S) in males and long-allele (MAOA-L) in females, in the presence of a negative environment, are associated with alcohol misuse. Whether MAOA-S/L alleles also present susceptibility to a positive environment to mitigate the risk of alcohol misuse is unknown. T...

Introduction Girls and boys presenting disruptive behavior disorders (DBDs) display differences in white matter microstructure (WMM) relative to typically developing (TD) sex-matched peers. Boys with DBDs are at increased risk for traumatic brain injuries (TBIs), which are also known to impact WMM. This study aimed to disentangle associations of WM...

Background: Intellectual disability (ID), schizophrenia spectrum disorder (SSD), bipolar disorder (BD), substance use disorder (SUD), and other mental disorders (OMDs) are associated with increased risks of criminality relative to sex-matched individuals without these conditions (NOIDMD). To resource psychiatric, addiction, and social services so...

Objective Mental health services for persons presenting a first episode of psychosis include specialized interventions that are effective in treating psychosis, but they do not include treatments that prevent aggressive behaviour (AB). This article presents the results of studies in an effort to incite these services to evaluate the risk of AB and...

Objective Some persons developing, or presenting, schizophrenia engage in aggressive behaviour (AB) and/or criminal offending. Most of these individuals display AB prior to a first episode of psychosis (FEP). In fact, approximately one-third of FEP patients have a history of AB, some additionally display other antisocial behaviours (A+AB). The larg...

The percentage of forensic psychiatric patients who are female varies from 5 to 13% in Europe, rises to 18% in England and Wales, and sits at 15% in Canada. Similarly, many fewer women than men are incarcerated in correctional facilities. While these statistics supposedly reflect less antisocial and aggressive behavior (AAB) among females than male...

Effective treatments for traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) are limited. Prevention is key to reduce the societal burden of TBIs. This chapter reviews research on TBIs and aggressive behavior and criminality to illustrate the importance of disentangling pre- and post-injury characteristics, family environments, and experiences. The assumption that TBI...

Epigenome-wide studies report higher methylation among women than men with decreasing levels with age. Little is known about associations of sex and age with methylation of monoamine oxidase A ( MAOA ). Methylation of the first exonic and partial first intronic region of MAOA has been shown to strengthen associations of interactions of MAOA-uVNTR g...

To the Editor Asarnow and colleagues¹ conducted a meta-analysis to determine whether attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) was associated with traumatic brain injury (TBI). They reported that 16.0% of study participants had presented with ADHD prior to injury, a prevalence considerably higher than that of 10.8% reported for the general po...

Background Various combinations of childhood conduct problems, callous traits and anxiety may confer increased risk of offending, psychopathic traits and mental disorders. Knowledge of these outcomes in adulthood is limited. Aims To compare adult criminal convictions, psychopathy checklist scores and mental disorders between five groups of men, va...

Objective: Traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) are sustained by approximately 17% of males in the general population, many of whom subsequently present mental disorders, cognitive, and physical problems. Little is known about predictors of TBIs and how to prevent them. The present study aimed to determine whether inattention-hyperactivity and/or all ex...

People with schizophrenia and a history of violence towards others require treatment both for schizophrenia and for aggressive, and often, antisocial behaviour. This chapter reviews evidence showing that effective treatments could be provided much earlier in the lives of offenders with schizophrenia and hypothesizes that a re‐organization of mental...

Background: Individuals with bipolar disorder (BD) often possess maladaptive traits and present with various difficulties in psychosocial functioning. However, little is known about the intimate partners of adults with bipolar disorder (BD) and how mental illnesses other than BD within couples may further complicate the picture. Such knowledge is...

Background: The association between childhood maltreatment and subsequent aggressive behaviour is modified by monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) functional polymorphism (MAOA-uVNTR) genotype, MAOA-Long (MAOA-L) in females, MAOA-Short (MAOA-S) in males. Childhood maltreatment is associated with differential DNA methylation in several genes. Consistent with...

As many as 10.7% of males and 7.5% of females display early-onset, stable, antisocial and aggressive behavior (ESAAB). Most research has focused on males. These individuals are diagnosed with conduct disorder in childhood and antisocial personality disorder in adulthood, and a very few, almost all males, present the syndrome of psychopathy. ESAAB i...

The importance of Vesicular Glutamate Transporter 2 (VGLUT2)-mediated neurotransmission has been highlighted in studies on addiction-related phenotypes. The single nucleotide polymorphism rs2290045 in VGLUT2 has been associated with alcohol dependence, but it is unknown whether or how this association is affected by environmental factors. The prese...

Objective: Traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) are sustained by approximately 17% of males in the general population, many whom subsequently present mental disorders, cognitive, and physical problems. Little is known about predictors of TBIs and how to prevent them. The present study aimed to determine whether inattention-hyperactivity and/or all exter...

The severe mental illnesses, or psychoses, include schizophrenia, schizo‐affective disorder, bipolar disorder, and other psychoses. Robust evidence shows that individuals with schizophrenia are more likely than those without this disorder to be convicted, or found not guilty because of a mental disorder, of crimes, especially violent crimes. A sign...

The rank-ordered logit (rologit) model was recently introduced as a robust approach for analysing continuous outcomes, with the linear exposure effect estimated by scaling the rank-based log-odds estimate. Here we extend the application of the rologit model to continuous outcomes with ties and ordinal outcomes treated as imperfectly-observed contin...

Background Childhood maltreatment interacts with a functional polymorphism in the monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) gene promoter region to modify the risk of aggressive behaviour. In females, the high-expressing variant (MAOA-L) interacts with maltreatment, whereas in males it is the low-expressing variant (MAOA-S) that interacts with maltreatment, highl...

Objective: The authors aimed to elucidate the links between traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) and criminal convictions in a sample of 724 Canadian males with and without criminal records followed up to age 24. Methods: Prospectively collected data were analyzed to determine whether prior TBIs predicted subsequent criminal convictions after taking ac...

Among females, conduct disorder (CD) before age 15 is associated with multiple adverse outcomes in adulthood. The few existing structural neuroimaging studies of females with CD report abnormalities of gray matter volumes. The present study compared cortical thickness and surface area of young women with childhood/adolescent CD and healthy women to...

Purpose To prevent violence among persons with psychosis, further knowledge of the correlates and risk factors is needed. These risk factors may vary by nation. Patients and methods This study examined factors associated with violent assaults in 158 patients with psychosis and in a matched control sample of 158 adults without psychosis in the Czec...

Childhood physical abuse (PA) and sexual abuse (SA) interact with monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) gene polymorphism to modify risk for mental disorders. In addition, PA and SA may alter gene activity through epigenetic mechanisms such as DNA methylation, thereby further modifying risk for disorders. We investigated whether methylation in a region spanni...

Background: Psychopathic traits vary dimensionally in the population and are associated with multiple negative outcomes. The impaired integration theory (IIT) proposes that psychopathic traits are associated with abnormal neural network topology, such that disturbed integration of neural networks results in a self-perpetuating impairment in rapid...

Background The extent to which poor academic achievement is associated with later schizophrenia is unclear. The aim of the present study was to update our prior meta-analyses which examined academic achievement in youth aged 16 years or younger who later developed schizophrenia or schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD) and those who did not (Dickso...

The oxytocin receptor gene (OXTR) influences human behavior. The G allele of OXTR rs53576 has been associated with both prosocial and maladaptive behaviors but few studies have taken account of environmental factors. The present study determined whether the association of childhood maltreatment with conduct problems was modified by OXTR rs53576 gen...

This chapter reviews evidence about individuals who display antisocial behavior throughout their lives. This syndrome is diagnosed as antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) in adulthood and conduct disorder (CD) prior to age 15. The chapter focuses on the majority of these individuals who present low or no traits of psychopathy. It presents a descr...

Background Among adults with schizophrenia, evidence suggests that premorbid deficits in different cognitive domains follow distinct developmental courses during childhood and adolescence. The aim of this study was to delineate trajectories of adolescent cognitive functions prospectively among different groups of youth at‐risk for schizophrenia, re...

Background Epigenetic mechanisms are candidate moderators of the effect of maltreatment on brain and behavior. Interactions between maltreatment and the monoamine oxidase A upstream variable number tandem repeat genotype (MAOA‐uVNTR) are associated with alcohol‐related problems. However, presently it is not known whether DNA methylation moderates t...

Conduct disorder (CD) and anxiety disorders (ADs) are often comorbid and both are characterized by hyper-sensitivity to threat, and reduced structural and functional connectivity between the amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC). Previous studies of CD have not taken account of ADs nor directly compared connectivity in the two disorders. We exami...

Background Some evidence suggests that the prevalence of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is elevated among male criminal offenders. It is not presently known whether offending, and violent offending, are limited to those presenting comorbid Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD) who have a childhood history of conduct problems and whether off...

Traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) are the leading cause of death and disability in children and young adults around the world (WHO, 2006). Although incidence rates vary across studies, TBIs are estimated to affect approximately 0.6% of Canadians and 1-2% of the US population. Several studies conducted in different countries confirm that the prevalenc...

Purpose Psychopathic traits are associated with multiple negative outcomes. The present prospective, longitudinal study identified associations of childhood factors with adult psychopathy scores. Methods 311 men, aged, on average, 33 years, were assessed using the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R). Predictors included neighbourhood deprivation...

We investigated the influence of anger processing on cognitive control in male schizophrenia patients presenting violent behaviors. We recruited 23 patients without and 24 patients with (SCZ+V) a history of violent behaviors, as well as 22 healthy non-violent men. Participants were administered an affective (angry-neutral faces) Go/NoGo task while...

The offspring of parents with bipolar disorder (OBD) are at high risk for developing mental disorders. In addition to genetic factors, environmental risk is purported to be associated with these negative outcomes. However, few studies have examined this relation. Using concurrent and longitudinal data, we examined if support, structure, and control...

Psychopathy comprises interpersonal, affective, lifestyle and antisocial facets that vary dimensionally in the population and are associated with criminal offending and adverse psychosocial outcomes. Evidence associating these facets with white matter microstructure of the uncinate fasciculus and the cingulum tracts is inconsistent and derives prin...

The phenotype and genotype of antisocial behavior among females are different from those among males. Previous studies have documented structural brain alterations in males with antisocial behavior, yet little is known about the neural correlates of female antisocial behavior. The present study examined young women who had presented conduct disorde...

People with, and those who are developing, schizophrenia are at increased risk to engage in aggressive behavior (AGB). Some incidents lead to criminal prosecution. Most people with schizophrenia who commit crimes engage in delinquency and/or AGB prior to first episode. A large proportion of these individuals have a history of childhood conduct diso...

Disentangling Associations between Antisocial Behavior and Anxiety Disorders with Amygdala-Orbitofrontal Functional and Structural Connectivity in Females

Among violent offenders with schizophrenia, there are 2 sub-groups, one with and one without, conduct disorder (CD) and antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), who differ as to treatment response and alterations of brain structure. The present study aimed to determine whether the 2 groups also differ in Theory of Mind and neural activations subsumi...

Objective: To review findings with clinical relevance that add to knowledge about antisocial and aggressive behaviour among persons with schizophrenia. Method: Nonsystematic literature review. Results: Recent evidence shows that individuals who develop schizophrenia present cognitive deficits, psychotic-like experiences, and internalizing and...

Background: Strategies are needed to identify youth developing schizophrenia. The present study aimed to determine whether adolescents treated for substance misuse were at elevated risk to develop schizophrenia, whether this risk has changed since the late 1960s, and whether substance misuse in adolescence predicted poorer outcomes through adultho...

Background Evidence suggests a 2.1–4.6 times increase in the risk of violent behavior in schizophrenia compared to the general population. Current theories propose that the processing of negative emotions is defective in violent individuals and that dysfunctions within the neural circuits involved in emotion processing are implicated in violence. A...

The behavioral phenotype and genotype of conduct disorder (CD) differ in males and females. Abnormalities of white matter integrity have been reported among males with CD and antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). Little is known about white matter integrity in females with CD. The present study aimed to determine whether abnormalities of white ma...

We recently reported that adolescent and young adult offspring of parents with bipolar disorder (OBD), relative to control offspring, were more likely to engage in sexual risk behaviors (SRBs). The present prospective study aimed to determine the contribution of parents' personality and offspring behaviour problems in middle childhood to offspring...

High levels of psychopathic traits in youth are associated with multiple negative outcomes including substance misuse, aggressive behavior, and criminality. Evidence regarding stability of psychopathic traits is contradictory. No previous study has examined long-term stability of psychopathic traits assessed with validated clinical measures. The pr...

De nombreuses études ont montré qu’il y a une association entre les comportements violents et le fait d’avoir un diagnostic de schizophrénie (Sz) [1,2]. Cependant, il a aussi été démontré que seulement une minorité des patients sera violente [3]. Plusieurs études ont considéré ces phénomènes afin de mieux identifier les personnes à risque et, par l...

The timing and mechanisms underlying the development of psychopathic traits in children is a critical topic in psychopathy research. The present study sought to examine psychopathic traits in children, ages 5.5 to 8.5, using items which were included in multiple waves of a large longitudinal study of approximately 900 community children, the Québec...

The mechanisms underlying the development of psychopathic traits in children are not well understood. In opposition to the emotion deficit hypotheses, the affect dysregulation theory posits that many children who later develop psychopathic traits experience substantial negative affect early in development but learn to block or tune out their emotio...

The timing and mechanisms underlying the development of psychopathic traits in children is a critical topic in psychopathy research. The present study sought to examine psychopathic traits in children, ages 5.5 to 8.5, using items which were included in multiple waves of a large longitudinal study of approximately 900 community children, the Québec...

Background: Men with antisocial personality disorder show lifelong abnormalities in adaptive decision making guided by the weighing up of reward and punishment information. Among men with antisocial personality disorder, modification of the behaviour of those with additional diagnoses of psychopathy seems particularly resistant to punishment. Met...

Background: Previous evidence of gene-by-environment interactions associated with emotional and behavioral disorders is contradictory. Differences in findings may result from variation in valence and dose of the environmental factor, and/or failure to take account of gene-by-gene interactions. The present study investigated interactions between the...

We conducted exploratory analyses in violent offenders and non-offenders to estimate associations between MAOA genotype, childhood physical abuse, reactive and proactive aggression, and factor 1 and 2 PCL-R scores. MAOA-H was associated with proactive aggression. Childhood physical abuse was associated with both proactive aggression and lifelong an...

La plupart des enfants et des adolescents qui commettent des actes délinquants ne persistent pas dans la criminalité une fois à l’âge adulte. Ainsi, on conçoit qu’il y a dans l’environnement immédiat des facteurs qui protègent les enfants et les adolescents à risque. Or, la documentation sur les facteurs de protection montre des lacunes. Notamment,...

Conduct disorder (CD) prior to age 15 identifies a subgroup of men with severe mental illness (SMI) who present a high risk for violence that persists across the life span. The present study examined male violent offenders with SMI in a forensic hospital in Spain, comparing those with SMI+CD and those without SMI-CD on the HCR-20 and PCL:SV. Violen...

A wealth of evidence shows that people with schizophrenia benefit from multiple forms of treatment.1 Specific treatments targeting antisocial and aggressive behaviour, in addition to medication and case management, have been shown to reduce the risk of violent crime.2 Yet, evidence regarding the role of positive psychotic symptoms in promoting viol...

There is now robust evidence that schizophrenia is associated with an increased risk of violence. Across Europe, the numbers of forensic hospital beds have dramatically increased largely due to admissions of men with schizophrenia. This article critically reviews the extant literature on schizophrenia and violence. A systematic review of the litera...

Objective: To determine whether psychopathic traits assessed in mid-adolescence predicted mental health, psychosocial, and antisocial (including criminal) outcomes 5 years later and would thereby provide advantages over diagnosing conduct disorder (CD). Method: Eighty-six women and 61 men were assessed in mid-adolescence when they first contacte...

Schizophreniekranke haben im Vergleich zur restlichen Bevölkerung eine erhöhte Aggressionsneigung und ein erhöhtes Risiko, Gewalttaten und Tötungsdelikte zu begehen. Psychotische Symptome erklärten nur das in akuten Phasen häufige aggressive Verhalten, nicht aber vergleichbares Verhalten vor Ausbruch der Erkrankung oder außerhalb akuter Krankheitsp...

People with schizophrenia are at increased risk, as compared to the general population, to acquire convictions for violent crimes and homicide. They also show elevated levels of aggressive behaviour. While psychotic symptoms explain aggressive behaviour that is common during acute episodes, they do not explain such behaviour at other stages of illn...

Violent offenders with psychopathy present a lifelong pattern of callousness and aggression and fail to benefit from rehabilitation programs. This study presents the first, albeit preliminary, evidence suggesting that some of the structural brain anomalies distinguishing violent offenders with psychopathy may result from physical abuse in childhood...

Studies report that in the UK, among men with severe mental illness (SMI), those of black Caribbean ethnicity display increased risk of aggressive behaviour, criminal convictions, and schizophrenia. The study aimed to compare aggressive behaviour and criminal convictions among men with SMI of white British, black Caribbean and black African ethnici...