MAOA and persistent, pervasive childhood aggression

Abstract

A functional polymorphism in the MAOA VNTR promoter region was examined among 50 psychiatrically referred male children with childhood-onset aggression, operationalized as a 2-year history of aggressive behaviour and clinical aggression scores on both the parent-reported Child Behaviour Checklist and the Teacher Report Form. Persistently and pervasively, aggressive children were significantly more likely to carry the four-repeat allele than adult normal controls. Further investigation of the relation between the high MAOA transcription allele and childhood-onset aggression is warranted.