Nosological aspects of postraumatic aggressiveness. A 12 years hoy report

Abstract

Explosive and violent bebavoir in postraumatic patients populations is a significant clinical problem. DSM-III classified the condition as "intermittent explosive disorder "and DSM-III-R calls this syndrome "organic personality disorder, explosive type". Recently, this disorder is classified in DSM-IV under the rubric of "personality change due to a general medical condition". However, for this disturbance, experts in neuropsychiatry have proposed a specific category of "organic aggressive syndrome". The basic reason for proposing this diagnostic is that it more accurately describes the especific condition of violence secondary to the brain lesions. Futhermore, the explosive agression may occur isolated without the associated personality disturbances specified in DSM-III-R and DSM-IV. We report a case that clearly supports this proposal and suggest the usefulness of cerebral blood flow with single photon emission computed toniography (SPECT) to estahlisb tbe validity ql tbis psychiatric disorder.