Epidemiology of aggression and violence in mental disorders and the approach of TRR 379

Aggression in mental disorders (AMD) poses a challenge for everyday clinical practice and has far-reaching societal implications. The biological foundations of the different manifestations, developmental trajectories, and transdiagnostic and disorder-specific deficits remain largely unknown. One reason for the apparent lack of understanding of the complex mechanisms underlying AMD is the heterogeneity of both aggression and mental disorders themselves. This, in turn, hinders progress in developing effective prevention and intervention strategies. Therefore, a collaborative approach between clinical and experimental neuroscientists is required to address this issue comprehensively and in a multimodal manner. The proposed initiative aims to advance knowledge on the biological bases of AMD and its developmental course. The Transregional Collaborative Research Center 379 (TRR) will follow the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) framework, investigating multiple aspects that characterize aggression: genetic and molecular mechanisms as well as hormonal, neural, and associated behavioral systems. Thus, the TRR aims to identify biosignatures of AMD based on multidimensional pathways that underlie the different manifestations of aggression to enable the development of tailor-made biosignature-specific prevention and intervention.