Abstract
This chapter reviews studies on the pharmacology of aggression published over the past two to three years. It is noteworthy that problems with aggressive behaviour span diagnostic categories and that it is essential to emphasize that aggression covers a wide range of behaviours, which in very basic ways, serve both individual and species survival. Consequently only maladaptive or pathological aggressive behaviour is an appropriate target for pharmacotherapy. Neurochemical studies in animals suggest that cholinergic and catecholaminergic mechanisms are involved in the induction and enhancement of predatory or instrumental aggression while serotonergic and gamma amino butyric acid-ergic mechanisms are inhibitory. In affective aggression, dopaminergic mechanisms are facilitatory while noradrenergic and serotonergic mechanisms are inhibitory. These findings have still not led to a completely rational anti-aggressive pharmacopeia.
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© 1987 Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, Dordrecht
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Sheard, M.H. (1987). Psychopharmacology of Aggression in Humans. In: Olivier, B., Mos, J., Brain, P.F. (eds) Ethopharmacology of Agonistic Behaviour in Animals and Humans. Topics in the Neurosciences, vol 7. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3359-0_16
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-3359-0_16
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