TY - JOUR
T1 - Testosterone and Aggression in Children
AU - CONSTANTINO, JOHN N.
AU - GROSZ, DANIEL
AU - SAENGER, PAUL
AU - CHANDLER, DONALD W.
AU - NANDI, REENA
AU - EARLS, FELTON J.
N1 - Funding Information:
Supported in part as a pilot project for the Harvard University School ofPublic Health Program on Human Development and Criminal Behavior, through grants to Dr. Earls from the National Institute ofJustice and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The authors acknowledge the help and guidance received from Darrel M. Mayes, M.D., Edward Sperling, M.D., Polly Bijur, Ph.D., Richard Lane, M.D., and Patricia Gordon, R.N. The authors also thank Elizabeth J. Susman Ph.D.
PY - 1993
Y1 - 1993
N2 - A link between serum testosterone and aggressive behavior, which has been demonstrated in numerous animal studies and suggested in several studies of adult men, has never been investigated in children before the time of puberty. We measured serum testosterone, sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG), dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), and dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS) in 18 highly aggressive prepubertal boys, ages 4 to 10, hospitalized for violent or unmanageable behavior at a state children's psychiatric facility in New York City (the Bronx). We compared them with a group of age and race matched controls from the same demographic area, screened negative for aggressive behavior problems. All the aggressive subjects met DSM-III-R criteria for conduct disorder and scored higher than the 98th percentile on the aggression subscale of the Child Behavior Checklist (mean T = 80 for the group). There were no significant differences between aggressive and nonaggressive children for T, SHBG, DHEA, DHEAS, or ratios of combinations of these variables. These findings raise questions about inferences from adult studies that testosterone may play a causal role in the development of human aggression. Testosterone does not appear to be a useful biological marker for aggressivity in early childhood. J. Am. Acad. Child Adolesc. Psychiatry, 1993, 32, 6:1217–1222.
AB - A link between serum testosterone and aggressive behavior, which has been demonstrated in numerous animal studies and suggested in several studies of adult men, has never been investigated in children before the time of puberty. We measured serum testosterone, sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG), dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), and dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS) in 18 highly aggressive prepubertal boys, ages 4 to 10, hospitalized for violent or unmanageable behavior at a state children's psychiatric facility in New York City (the Bronx). We compared them with a group of age and race matched controls from the same demographic area, screened negative for aggressive behavior problems. All the aggressive subjects met DSM-III-R criteria for conduct disorder and scored higher than the 98th percentile on the aggression subscale of the Child Behavior Checklist (mean T = 80 for the group). There were no significant differences between aggressive and nonaggressive children for T, SHBG, DHEA, DHEAS, or ratios of combinations of these variables. These findings raise questions about inferences from adult studies that testosterone may play a causal role in the development of human aggression. Testosterone does not appear to be a useful biological marker for aggressivity in early childhood. J. Am. Acad. Child Adolesc. Psychiatry, 1993, 32, 6:1217–1222.
KW - aggression
KW - androgens
KW - child behavior checklist
KW - conduct disorder
KW - testosterone
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0027440462&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1097/00004583-199311000-00015
DO - 10.1097/00004583-199311000-00015
M3 - Article
C2 - 8282667
AN - SCOPUS:0027440462
SN - 0890-8567
VL - 32
SP - 1217
EP - 1222
JO - Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
JF - Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
IS - 6
ER -