Neurobiological Deficits

The goals of this study were to examine the rela-tionship between community violence and in pa-tient assaults and to identify neurological and neuropsychological deficits underlying violent be-havior. Thirty-three in patients with a history of community violence were compared with 69 pa-tients who did not have such a history. In patient assaults were recorded for 4 weeks; a neurological! neuropsychological battery was then administered. Patients without community violence were more likely to show transient or no violence while in the hospital. Patients with community violence performed more poorly on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test and on psychomotor tasks, impair-ments that are consistent with frontal lobe dys-function. In patient assaults were not associated with these neuropsychological impairments. They were related, however, to impairment on frontal motor programming tasks and a history of com-munity violence