Group information

The advanced research group on personality, aggression, and impulse control disorders has grown progressively over the last fifteen years around a field of action constituted by severe behavioural pathologies other than schizophreniform disorders, bipolar disorders, or organic-brain disorders. They cover the so-called impulsive personality disorders (borderline, histrionic, antisocial), explosive aggression disorders (intermittent explosive disorder), self-harm disorders (self-injurious or self-mutilating behaviour, suicide), and pathological impulsivity disorders (bulimia nervosa and related disorders, pathological gambling, and other impulse control disorders).

Research has gone from the biological study of impulsive personality traits (Carrasco et al, 1994, Díaz-Marsá et al, 2000), through neurochemical (serotonergic depletion, hypothalamic-pituitary response, platelet MAO activity) and psychological (personality structure, neuropsychological function, coping mechanisms) indices of aggressive impulsive disorders and impulsive eating disorders (Carrasco et al, 2000, 2007, 2010), coping mechanisms) of impulsive aggressive disorders and impulsive eating disorders) (Carrasco et al, 2000, 2007, 2010) (Díaz-Marsá et al, 2007, 2009) to the current neurofunctional investigation of impulsivity (MRI, magnetoencephalography) of psychogenetic factors involved, such as childhood trauma, emotional and affective response, and attention deficit.

The initiator of the research, Dr. José Luis Carrasco, is Full Professor of Psychiatry and Head of Section at the Hospital Clínico San Carlos. He is a researcher of recognised prestige in the aforementioned areas, with an output in the form of high impact scientific publications, research projects, and outstanding participation in conferences and scientific societies. He is co-principal investigator, together with Prof. Juan José López-Ibor, from a CIBERSAM group at the HCSC. He has the active collaboration of Dr. Díaz-Marsá (although she is part of another research group in Psychiatry) and with a team made up of psychiatrists and psychologists from the HCSC and CIBERSAM, ranging from experienced clinicians and researchers such as Dr. Julia del Río and Dr. M. Dolores Sáiz (senior researchers at CIBERSAM) to young postdoctoral researchers recently incorporated and with great projection.