Psychobiology of the violent offender.

The antecedents of violent crime may include childhood victimization, head injuries, and alcohol and drug abuse. Neuropsychological and neuropsychiatric findings suggest temporal and frontal lobe dysfunctions in violent offenders; these dysfunctions appear to be more pronounced in the dominant hemisphere. Recent studies implicate disturbances of central serotonergic functions in impulsive homicide and arson. These results provide an adequate rationale for larger interdisciplinary studies using neurochemical, neuropsychiatric/neuropsychological, and psychosocial methods on the same subjects.