Abstract
Background
Psychopathy is characterized by a distinctive interpersonal style that combines callous-unemotional
traits with inflexible and antisocial behavior. Traditional emotion-based perspectives
link emotional impairment mostly to alterations in amygdala-ventromedial frontal circuits.
However, these models alone cannot explain why individuals with psychopathy can regularly
benefit from emotional information when placed on their focus of attention and why
they are more resistant to interference from nonaffective contextual cues. The present
study aimed to identify abnormal or distinctive functional links between and within
emotional and cognitive brain systems in the psychopathic brain to characterize further
the neural bases of psychopathy.
Methods
High-resolution anatomic magnetic resonance imaging with a functional sequence acquired
in the resting state was used to assess 22 subjects with psychopathy and 22 control
subjects. Anatomic and functional connectivity alterations were investigated first
using a whole-brain analysis. Brain regions showing overlapping anatomic and functional
changes were examined further using seed-based functional connectivity mapping.
Results
Subjects with psychopathy showed gray matter reduction involving prefrontal cortex,
paralimbic, and limbic structures. Anatomic changes overlapped with areas showing
increased degree of functional connectivity at the medial-dorsal frontal cortex. Subsequent
functional seed-based connectivity mapping revealed a pattern of reduced functional
connectivity of prefrontal areas with limbic-paralimbic structures and enhanced connectivity
within the dorsal frontal lobe in subjects with psychopathy.
Conclusions
Our results suggest that a weakened link between emotional and cognitive domains in
the psychopathic brain may combine with enhanced functional connections within frontal
executive areas. The identified functional alterations are discussed in the context
of potential contributors to the inflexible behavior displayed by individuals with
psychopathy.
Keywords
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Article Info
Publication History
Published online: March 17, 2014
Accepted:
March 7,
2014
Received in revised form:
February 18,
2014
Received:
December 12,
2013
Identification
Copyright
© 2015 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
