Developmental pathways to aggression in mental disorders

Abstract Aggression in mental disorders is a clinically and societally highly relevant transdiagnostic phenomenon with heterogeneous developmental trajectories in childhood and adolescence: Aggressive behaviors may occur transiently and decline, but they may also stabilize across adolescence and persist into adulthood. The Collaborative Research Center Transregio 379 “Neuropsychobiology of Aggression: A Transdiagnostic Approach in Mental Disorders” investigates the biological, psychological, and social mechanisms that explain these divergent trajectories. The guiding framework is a developmental model in which aggressive biosignatures emerge from an imbalance between the developing negative valence system and cognitive control. During adolescence, reactivity to social threat, rejection, frustration, and status loss increases, while cognitive control systems continue to mature. Peers, exclusion, victimization, bullying, and puberty-related hormonal changes may shape these maturational processes. This article describes the child and adolescent developmental projects of TRR 379 and the longitudinal cohort. Understanding transdiagnostic biosignatures opens new opportunities for preventive and mechanism-based therapeutic interventions during critical windows of developmental plasticity.