In particular, they identified forty genes in humans and mice that can lead to a risk of aggressive behaviours "and that take part in biological processes that are related to the development and function of the central nervous system, communication within cells and cellular function maintenance," adds researcher Fernàndez Castillo (IBUB-CIBERER-IRSJD). "Some gens are likely to function as important nodes of the genic networks prone to a violent behaviour, and those would be probably related to other genes which play a minor role," adds the researcher.
"If any of those central genes is altered, it could affect the other genes and lead to the aggressive phenotype. For instance, RBFOX1 gene, identified in the new study and cited in a previous article by our team (European Neuropsychopharmacology, 2017), regulates the expression of fifteen out of the forty genes that we identified in the study. Another gene we marked -MAOA, which codes a metabolizing enzyme of the serotonin neurotransmission-, is related to drugs used to treat several psychiatric pathologies, sycg as selective inhibitors of serotonin reuptake or SSRIs."