**Abstract**

The prevalence of aggression has become an increasing problem that threatens lives, from suicidal ideation to homicide. Multiple factors contribute to such issue, including genetic, psychological, familial, economic, environmental, dietary habits, endocrine disturbances, psychiatric disorders, and neurological disturbances, making it resistant to control. If key targets can be identified, it might be possible to find a cure. To date, glutamate has been one culprit involved in aggression, instigated by inflammatory mediators and reactive oxygen species. Monosodium glutamate as well as omega-3 and-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids -components of our modern diet- modulate the inflammatory state, hence, affecting brain and blood glutamate, the latter is an essential neurotransmitter sharing in the antioxidant capacity of erythrocytes. Hence, the erythrocytic or blood glutamate assay, along with members of the inflammatory cascade, might be a cost-effective diagnostic and prognostic tool for aggressive behavior, especially feasible for assessing the efficacy of the intervening dietary and/or pharmacological measures to prevent such potentially devastating behavior.

**Keywords:** aggression, glutamate, monosodium glutamate, omega-3 fatty acids, omega-6 fatty acids

### **1. Introduction**

Neurotransmitters in the brain are classified into inhibitory and excitatory. Each single neurotransmitter is a gear in an engine whose release is crucial for the brain's equilibrated machinery to proceed. The overflow of one neurotransmitter draws a cascade of events that disturb this discrete brain signaling, so does its deficiency. Accumulation of glutamate (Glu), the most abundant amino acid excitatory neurotransmitter, has been implicated in many neurological disorders, including aggressive behavior and the tendency to violence [1].

Exposure to ongoing or anticipated threatening events provokes a multitude of instinctive behavioral reactions, that enhance the ability to accommodate, survive, and sustain the stress, whether acute or chronic [2]. Among humans, stress-related behavior might be controlled relative to the magnitude of stress and its foreseen consequences; but in other cases, it might extend far beyond logic thinking and rational control, building up a crescendo aggressive attitude, that, instead of being a reactive physiologic response, becomes an intuitive pathologic one, that, even, needs no impulse to ignite.

Since the brain is not totally segregated from the peripheral system, variations of blood Glu can mirror brain Glu turbulence, hence, blood assays have been suggested to diagnose and follow-up neurological diseases. Assaying blood Glu might offer a noninvasive, cost-effective, and quantitative way to assess aggression for a better control, comparing the potency and efficacy of various interventions that address this issue. Therefore, we can gather and analyze data, derived from blood assays of glutamate and inflammatory markers in cases exhibiting aggressive behaviors, to be invested for future implementation of treatment plans and optimum choice of medications, instead of a trial-and-error policy that wastes the time and delays improvements in which timing would be critical for the patient and his/her family, or surroundings.
