Brain Basis of Psychopathy in Criminal Offenders and General Population

Abstract

Psychopathy is characterized by persistent antisocial behavior, impaired empathy, and egotistical traits. These traits vary also in normally functioning individuals. Here, we tested whether such antisocial personalities are associated with similar structural and neural alterations as those observed in criminal psychopathy. Subjects were 100 non-convicted well-functioning individuals, 19 violent male offenders, and 19 matched controls. Subjects underwent T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging and viewed movie clips with varying violent content during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Psychopathic traits were evaluated with Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale (controls) and Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (offenders). Psychopathic offenders had lower gray matter density (GMD) in orbitofrontal cortex and anterior insula. In the community sample, affective psychopathy traits were associated with lower GMD in the same areas. Viewing violence increased brain activity in periaqueductal grey matter, thalamus, somatosensory, premotor, and temporal cortices. Psychopathic offenders had increased responses to violence in thalamus and orbitofrontal, insular, and cingulate cortices. In the community sample, impulsivity-related psychopathy traits were positively associated with violence-elicited responses in similar areas. We conclude that brain characteristics underlying psychopathic spectrum in violent psychopathy are related to those observed in well-functioning individuals with asocial personality features.

Keywords: VBM; empathy; fMRI; psychopathy; violence.

Figure 1

Experimental design and sample stimuli. The subjects viewed a compilation of 137 movie clips with variable violent and nonviolent content.

Figure 2

Results from the voxel-based morphometry analyses. (A) Brain regions where convicted offenders had significant atrophy in comparison with control subjects. (B) Brain regions where primary psychopathy scores were associated with decreased GMD, P < 0.01 FDR corrected. aINS = anterior insula, OFC = orbitofrontal cortex, SI = primary somatosensory cortex, SII = secondary somatosensory cortex. .

Figure 3

Brain regions showing increased (hot colors, 0.05 familywise error (FWE) corrected for visualization) and decreased (hot colors, P < 0.05 FDR corrected for visualization) activity as a function of violence seen in the movies. Data for the community sample are shown for reference. MCG = middle cingulate gyrys, STG = superior temporal gyrus, STS = superior temporal sulcus, and VST = ventral striatum.

Figure 4

Brain regions whose responses to seen violence were stronger on convicted offenders versus controls (A) and positively associated with secondary psychopathy scores in the community sample (B). The data are thresholded at P < 0.05, FDR corrected. MCC = middle cingulate cortex.

Figure 5

Orbitofrontal cortical density (left; expressed as probability of a voxel belonging to gray matter) and functional responses (right) in the prisoners and controls (top) and in the community sample (bottom). Error bars in the dotplots show ±2 standard deviation, the scatterplots show LS-regression lines with 95% confidence interval.

Figure 6

Brain regions whose connectivity with amygdala, frontal pole, thalamus, and insula was lowered in the convicted offenders versus controls. The data are thresholded at P < 0.05, FDR corrected at cluster level.