We clarify the relation between Bourn's notion of peri-abelian category on the one hand and coincidence of the Smith, Huq and Higgins commutators on the other. Next, peri-abelian categories are shown to form a good context for the general theory of universal central extensions: all peri-abelian categories satisfy the condition (UCE) considered in joint work with Casas; and via a result of Cigoli, all categories of interest in Orzech's sense are examples.
Van Der Linden, T. (2013). Universal central extensions in peri-abelian categories. 1st Workshop on Categorical Methods in Non Abelian Algebra, Coimbra Portugal. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/205486