Neuroimaging research has demonstrated the involvement of a well-defined brain network in the mediation of moral judgment in normal population, and has suggested the inappropriate network use in criminal psychopathy. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to prove that alterations in the brain network subserving moral judgment in criminal psychopaths are not limited to the inadequate network use during moral judgment, but that a primary network breakdown would exist with dysfunctional alterations outside moral dilemma situations. A total of 22 criminal psychopathic men and 22 control subjects were assessed and fMRI maps were generated to identify (i) brain response to moral dilemmas, (ii) task-induced deactivation of the network during a conventional cognitive task and (iii) the strength of functional connectivity within the network during resting-state. The obtained functional brain maps indeed confirmed that the network subserving moral judgment is underactive in psychopathic individuals during moral dilemma situations, but the data also provided evidence of a baseline network alteration outside moral contexts with a functional disconnection between emotional and cognitive elements that jointly construct moral judgment. The finding may have significant social implications if considering psychopathic behavior to be a result of a primary breakdown in basic brain systems.

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.

Background Given the influence that personality can have on empathy, this study explores the relationship between empathy and personality, using three different measures of empathy, and taking into account gender and specialty preference. Methods Cross-sectional study. One hundred and ten medical students completed the Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy, the Interpersonal Reactivity Index, the Empathy Quotient, and the NEO-FFI Big Five personality model . Multivariable linear regression was performed to assess the association between personality traits and empathy. Results Empathy scales showed weak and moderate correlation with personality. The strongest correlations were observed between IRI-Fantasy and Openness, and between IRI-Personal Distress and Neuroticism. Gender and specialty preference can modify this relationship. The extreme groups of Empathy Quotient had significant differences in most personality traits. Conclusions This study confirmed that empathy is related to personality. Using three empathy scales allows personalizing the evaluation of different empathy models and its relation with personality. These results can help to design programs to study if some personalized intervention strategies could improve the empathy in medical students. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12909-019-1485-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Psychopaths show a reduced ability to recognize emotion facial expressions, which may disturb the interpersonal relationship development and successful social adaptation. Behavioral hypotheses point toward an association between emotion recognition deficits in psychopathy and amygdala dysfunction. Our prediction was that amygdala dysfunction would combine deficient activation with disturbances in functional connectivity with cortical regions of the face-processing network. Twenty-two psychopaths and 22 control subjects were assessed and functional magnetic resonance maps were generated to identify both brain activation and task-induced functional connectivity using psychophysiological interaction analysis during an emotional face-matching task. Results showed significant amygdala activation in control subjects only, but differences between study groups did not reach statistical significance. In contrast, psychopaths showed significantly increased activation in visual and prefrontal areas, with this latest activation being associated with psychopaths' affective-interpersonal disturbances. Psychophysiological interaction analyses revealed a reciprocal reduction in functional connectivity between the left amygdala and visual and prefrontal cortices. Our results suggest that emotional stimulation may evoke a relevant cortical response in psychopaths, but a disruption in the processing of emotional faces exists involving the reciprocal functional interaction between the amygdala and neocortex, consistent with the notion of a failure to integrate emotion into cognition in psychopathic individuals.

Individuals with psychopathy present deficits in the recognition of facial emotional expressions. However, the nature and extent of these alterations are not fully understood. Furthermore, available data on the functional neural correlates of emotional face recognition deficits in adult psychopaths have provided mixed results. In this context, emotional face morphing tasks may be suitable for clarifying mild and emotion-specific impairments in psychopaths. Likewise, studies exploring corresponding anatomical correlates may be useful for disentangling available neurofunctional evidence based on the alleged neurodevelopmental roots of psychopathic traits. We used Voxel-Based Morphometry and a morphed emotional face expression recognition task to evaluate the relationship between regional gray matter (GM) volumes and facial emotion recognition deficits in male psychopaths. In comparison to male healthy controls, psychopaths showed deficits in the recognition of sad, happy and fear emotional expressions. In subsequent brain imaging analyses psychopaths with better recognition of facial emotional expressions showed higher volume in the prefrontal cortex (orbitofrontal, inferior frontal and dorsomedial prefrontal cortices), somatosensory cortex, anterior insula, cingulate cortex and the posterior lobe of the cerebellum. Amygdala and temporal lobe volumes contributed to better emotional face recognition in controls only. These findings provide evidence suggesting that variability in brain morphometry plays a role in accounting for psychopaths’ impaired ability to recognize emotional face expressions, and may have implications for comprehensively characterizing the empathy and social cognition dysfunctions typically observed in this population of subjects.

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The Clinical Assessment of Prosocial Emotions: Version 1.1 (CAPE 1.1) uses structured clinical judgments to diagnose the “with limited prosocial emotions” specifier for Conduct Disorder. This study examined (a) the internal consistency and interrater agreement, and (b) the convergent and divergent validity of the CAPE 1.1 in 72 young males who were incarcerated in two Spanish juvenile detention centers (age range = 14–22 years). The CAPE 1.1 showed good interrater agreement for making the diagnosis of the specifier and adequate internal consistency. The CAPE 1.1 was associated with other measures of callous–unemotional traits, but less consistently associated with other dimensions of psychopathy. Youth who met diagnostic criteria for the specifier scored higher on externalizing problems, but did not differ from other youth who were incarcerated on internalizing problems. These results provide preliminary support for the psychometric properties of the CAPE 1.1 for the clinical assessment of the specifier.

Adventure therapy (AT) is a therapeutic intervention that has demonstrated effectiveness in different populations, but there are no studies on this therapy in borderline personality disorder (BPD). The objective of this study was to assess the response to AT in comparison with treatment as usual (based on cognitive‐behavioural therapy) in patients with BPD. Regarding the comparison of the differences post‐therapy–pre‐therapy between both groups, some metabolic variables improved more in the AT group, with medium–large effect sizes. Almost all psychometric variables evolved better in the AT group, with negligible effects. AT could be considered in BPD treatment because it results in healthier lifestyle habits and increases functionality and quality of life in patients who are prone to self‐destruction. © 2021 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.