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Lack of serotonin pushes people to violence
Last reviewed: 30.06.2025
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Irritable people would be much calmer if they had more of the neurotransmitter serotonin.
Researchers put 19 healthy volunteers on a diet that lowered serotonin levels and then scanned their brains. They found that the diet disrupted the connection between the amygdala, which processes fear, and the prefrontal cortex, which moderates it. This split in brain function can trigger an out-of-proportion reaction to a relatively mild threat.
The effect was discovered by showing serotonin-depleted volunteers photographs of sad, angry, and neutral faces during functional MRI scans of their brains. The participants were also asked to identify whether the faces in the pictures were male or female. This was a trick: the scientists were really interested in how the brain responded to the threat posed by the angry face.
The most severe disruption of the connection between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex was found in people who admitted to violence during the survey. “It was as if the intermediate voice of reason was lost,” says the group’s leader, Luca Passamonti from the University of Catanzaro (Italy).