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Objective: The role of serotonin (5‐HT) in human aggression has been the subject of a large number of studies, mostly with adults. Meta‐analyses indicate a small but significant inverse relationship between central nervous 5‐HT availability and aggression, but genetically informed studies suggest two pathways: one to reactive aggression and the other to proactive aggression. Method: We conducted a systemic review on central nervous 5‐HT function in children and adolescents, with attention to the function of aggression. Results: In total, 675 articles were screened for relevance, with 45 reviewed. These included blood assays (e.g. plasma, 5‐HIAA; platelet 5‐HTR2A), epigenetic studies, retrospective PET studies and 5‐HT challenge paradigms (e.g. tryptophan depletion). Overall, findings were mixed, with support both for negative and for positive associations of central nervous 5‐HT function with aggression in children and adolescents. Conclusion: We propose factors that may be blurring the picture, including problems in the conceptualization and measurement of aggression in young people, the lack of prospective designs and the bias towards clinical samples of boys. Research needs to account for variance in the both motivation for and implementation of aggression, and look to the behavioural economics literature to consider the roles of reward, vengeance and self‐control more clearly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses research which showed that people with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) struggle with emotional social information processing (SIP) including the encoding of affective information from prosodic aspects of verbal communication. Topics discussed include the struggle of patients with ADHD with anger-signaling information in voices and specific auditory processing deficit for adults with ADHD.

The article presents a study on reactive aggression in young patients with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Topics covered include reactive aggression being conceptualized as a response to some perceived provocation and is enacted in an impulsive manner and the results of a study showing a positive correlation between aggression during the point subtraction aggression game (PSAG) with dopamine activity in the striatum and midbrain.