Capacity theory: A neuropsychological perspective on shared neural systems regulating hostile violence prone behavior and the metabolic syndrome

Introduction: An essential characteristic of hostility is the exaggerated and prolonged response to stress this hyper-reactive stress response style has been implicated in the development of cardiovascular disease, hypertension, atherosclerosis, and even death. In addition to these cardiovascular disease processes, hostility’s influence on diabetes and the metabolic syndrome is beginning to be elucidated. Diabetes is potentially devastating as this disease disrupts the fuel supply (glucose) to the body and brain adversely affecting emotional, cognitive, and behavioral functioning, particularly when glucose levels are high. Diabetics are significantly more likely to have structural changes within the brain when compared to those without diabetes. Moreover, there is some evidence to suggest that these structural changes are lateralized to the right frontal lobe.

Conclusion: Using the Limited Capacity Model of hostility as a guide, it is argued that hostile men show prolonged and exaggerated responses to stress as a result of a limited stress management capacity attributable to the right frontal lobe. Further, individuals with a variable and deregulated fuel supply to their brain (diabetes) exhibiting an increased and exaggerated stress response (hostility) as a result of modest regulatory capacity, should demonstrate an exacerbated stress response within negative affective and sympathetic nervous systems of the right hemisphere.