Evidence for biological roots in the transgenerational transmission of intimate partner violence
Open accessAbstract
Intimate partner violence is a ubiquitous and devastating phenomenon for which effective interventions and a clear etiological understanding are still lacking. A major risk factor for violence perpetration is childhood exposure to violence, prompting the proposal that social learning is a major contributor to the transgenerational transmission of violence. Using an animal model devoid of human cultural factors, we showed that male rats became highly aggressive against their female partners as adults after exposure to non-social stressful experiences in their youth. Their offspring also showed increased aggression toward females in the absence of postnatal father-offspring interaction or any other exposure to violence. Both the females that cohabited with the stressed males and those that cohabited with their male offspring showed behavioral (including anxiety- and depression-like behaviors), physiological (decreased body weight and basal corticosterone levels) and neurobiological symptoms (increased activity in dorsal raphe serotonergic neurons in response to an unfamiliar male) resembling the alterations described in abused and depressed women. With the caution required when translating animal work to humans, our findings extend current psychosocial explanations of the transgenerational transmission of intimate partner violence by strongly suggesting an important role for biological factors.
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Previous work from the authors' lab demonstrated that peripubertally stressed adult rats show deficits in social behaviors, including reduced sociability and heightened aggression.
“Previous work has demonstrated deficits in social behaviors, including reduced sociability and heightened aggression, in peripubertally stressed adult rats13–16.”
From Peripubertal stress increases play fighting at adolescence and modulates nucleus accumbens CB1 receptor expression and mitochondrial function in the amygdala (2018) · cites this paper as [13]
The Results section (‘Effects of peripuberty stress on males’ aggressive behavior against females at adulthood’; page unavailable) reports that peripubertally stressed males were more aggressive toward females than controls. The passages found do not report reduced sociability in those males, so the citation supports the aggression component but not both stated social-behavior deficits. (LLM, conf=0.87)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredPPS in rats leads to reduced sociability, increased depression-like behaviors, and increased forms of abnormal aggression.
“Previously, we had reported reduced sociability, increased depression-like behaviors and increased forms of abnormal aggression following PPS in rats13–16,34,35,36.”
From Peripubertal stress increases play fighting at adolescence and modulates nucleus accumbens CB1 receptor expression and mitochondrial function in the amygdala (2018) · cites this paper as [13]
The Results section on males’ aggressive behavior reports that peripubertally stressed males were more aggressive toward females than controls. The Results section on female partners reports increased depression-like behavior after cohabitation, but that finding concerns the females, not the stressed males. The passages do not establish reduced sociability in the stressed males. (LLM, conf=0.87)
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References 53 · Cited by 83
Research works printed but not linked: 37
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- Authors
- Cordero, M. I., Poirier, G. L., Marquez, C., Veenit, V, Fontana, X., Salehi, B., Ansermet, F., & Sandi, C.
- Affiliations
- École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (CH)
- University of Geneva (CH)
- Corresponding author
- Sandi, C
- Venue
- Translational Psychiatry
- Published
- 2012-04-24
- Volume
- 2
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- e106-e106
- ISSN
- 2158-3188 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC3337076
- OpenAlex
- W2155514628
- Cited by
- 83
- References
- 53
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 13 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 7 · 2015: 8 · 2014: 13 · 2013: 11
- FWCI
- 11.72
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by-nc-nd
- www.springer.com/tdm (unspecified)
- Locations
- Translational Psychiatry (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Archive ouverte UNIGE (University of Geneva) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- e-space (Manchester Metropolitan University) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Infoscience (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) (submittedVersion)
- Infoscience (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Archive ouverte UNIGE (University of Geneva) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation
- École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (31003AB-135710)
- Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung (122691, 120791, 135710, 310000)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Health › Intimate Partner and Family Violence
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child Abuse and Trauma
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Bullying, Victimization, and Aggression
- Keywords
- intimate partner violence, transgenerational transmission, childhood stress, male rats, anxiety-like behavior, depression-like behavior, corticosterone, social learning
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Age Factors, Aggression, Agonistic Behavior, Animals, Anxiety, Body Weight, Child, Child Abuse, Corticosterone, Depression, Disease Models, Animal, Fear, Female, Gender Identity, Humans, Life Change Events, Male, Neurons, Raphe Nuclei, Risk Factors, Serotonin, Spouse Abuse, Stress, Psychological, Violence, Intergenerational Relations, Rats, Wistar, Epigenesis, Genetic, Rats, Gene-Environment Interaction
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