Psychopathy, Antisocial Personality Disorder and offending behaviour- Part 2. Flashcards
Psychopathy: Neuroimaging research:
What is the aim of fMRI?
What other techniques look at brain functions?
What is synonymous?
To understand the function of processes impaired in psychopaths.
Structual MRI + diffusion tensor imaging (DTI).
CD and CP.
Continuation from psychopathy:- neuroimaging research:
What technique can be used to study emotional facial expressions?
What can psychopaths not do?
What can this lead to?
What does it make?
fMRI.
Process emotional facial expressions- especially sad and fearful expressions.
Instrumental aggression + lack of empathy.
Committing crimes easier- seeing faces will not affect them.
Continuation from psychopathy- neuroimaging research:
Where do psychopaths have greater activation compared to controls?
Where do they have decreased activation?
What is positively correlated with interpersonal and affective features of psychopathy?
Visual + prefrontal cortices.
In functional connectivity between those regions + amygdala.
Higher activation in the medial prefrontal cortex.
Continuation from psychopathy- neuroimaging research.
When shown emotions, where do psychopaths have typical activation?
Where do they not show typical activation when shown emotions?
How is this then interpreted?
What does this mean?
In prefrontal cortices.
Amygdala- processes emotional valences- weak.
Higher activation in prefrontal cortex- compensates for lack of activity in amygdala.
Means they understand emotions (due to the prefrontal cortex) but don’t feel it (due to amygdala).
Continuation from psychopathy: Neuroimaging research:
Who else has reduced amygdala responses to fearful facial expressions?
What do they have more compared to controls?
Who has increased amygdala responses to fearful faces?
Adolescences with CD + HCU traits.
Higher callous unemotional traits.
CP + LCU traits.
Psychopathy- neuroimaging research- Empathy:
When shown the facial expressions of people in pain, where did psychopaths have?
Where did they have increased activity compared to controls?
Reduced activity- in inferior frontal gyrus + dorsal ACC.
Anterior insula.
Continuation with psychopathy- neuroimaging research- Empathy:
When shown body parts in painful situations, what did psychopaths show in comparison to controls?
Where was there surprisingly increased activity?
Why might this have been the case?
When was this not the case?
Reduced activity- in vmPFC + lateral orbitofrontal cortex + periaqueductal grey.
In inferior frontal gyrus + dorsal ACC + anterior insula.
Psychopaths could have imagined themselves in those situations.
When shown facial expressions- someone else is already in that position.
What does PCL-R stratified groups mean?
High, medium and low psychopathy.
Empathetic processing in children with CPs and CU traits:
In a study -males- with CP + high or low CU traits- shown painful and non-painful stimuli of the same picture- what was found when CP was controlled?
However, what was CP positively correlated with?
Callousness- negatively correlated with anterior insula activity.
ACC activity.
Psychopathy- sMRI adults:
Using structural MRI, what did offenders with ASPD + psychopathy show?
What was these reductions not attributable to?
Who had grey matter volumes similar to nonoffenders?
What does reduced grey matter affect?
Reduced grey matter volumes- in anterior rostral prefrontal cortex + temporal poles.
Substance use disorders.
Offenders with ASPD and not psychopathy.
Empathic processing + moral reasoning + processing prosocial emotions.
Psychopathy sMRI adults- different study:
What was psychopathy associated with?
What is the paralimbic cortex and limbic structures crucial for?
Where is there a difference between psychopaths and non-psychopaths?
Is this linked to what we learnt in previous lessons (like genetic and environmental risk factors)?
Decreased- regional gray matter- in paralimbic + limbic areas.
Understanding neural dysfunction in psychopathy.
Structural + functional differences.
Yes.
DTI- CD/HCU vs CD/LCU- Puzzo, et al. ( 2017):
Who did they compare in this study?
What area of the brain did they look at?
What was the main finding?
Where else was there reduced RD and MD?
CD- compared those with HCU traits + LCU traits.
White matter.
HCU adolescents- increased FA + reduced RD and MD- in corpus callosum + other tracts.
Left uncinate fasciculus (UF) + bilateral fornix.
Continuation with DTI CD/HCU vs CD/LCU- Puzzo, et al. ( 2017) study:
What means better connections?
Why was this finding surprising?
How did he interpret his surprising finding?
Increased FA + reduced RD and MD.
Found in those with HCU- counterintuitive.
Sample- young- brains not developed- tracts not reached maturity.
HCU- mature connections- due to being through a lot at a young age.
Neural profile- of callous traits- children- Population-based neuroimaging study:
Was Sirs study replicated?
What did they find?
What did they all expect?
What did they have however?
Yes- on a large scale (2000 children).
Same finding.
Worse connections- in brain of those with HCU traits.
Better connections- mature- not in line with their age.
Implications:
What is a limitation of all the studies?
Cross-sectional- need to be longitudinal studies.
