Biocognitive Classification of Antisocial Individuals Without Explanatory Reductionism

Abstract

<jats:p> Effective and specifically targeted social and therapeutic responses for antisocial personality disorders and psychopathy are scarce. Some authors maintain that this scarcity should be overcome by revising current syndrome-based classifications of these conditions and devising better biocognitive classifications of antisocial individuals. The inspiration for the latter classifications has been embedded in the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) approach. RDoC-type approaches to psychiatric research aim at transforming diagnosis, provide valid measures of disorders, aid clinical practice, and improve health outcomes by integrating the data on the genetic, neural, cognitive, and affective systems underlying psychiatric conditions. In the first part of the article, we discuss the benefits of such approaches compared with the dominant syndrome-based approaches and review recent attempts at building biocognitive classifications of antisocial individuals. Other researchers, however, have objected that biocognitive approaches in psychiatry are committed to an untenable form of explanatory reductionism. Explanatory reductionism is the view that psychological disorders can be exclusively categorized and explained in terms of their biological causes. In the second part of the article, we argue that RDoC-like approaches need not be associated with explanatory reductionism. Moreover, we argue how this is the case for a specific biocognitive approach to classifying antisocial individuals. </jats:p>

The importance of an exaggerated attention bottleneck for understanding psychopathy

“…Whole-brain analyses indicate that many of the major neural networks are disrupted in some way among psychopathic individuals [95,96]. Further work will be necessary to document the possibility of multiple, interactive, cognitiveaffective dysfunctions in psychopathy [97,98] (see Outstanding questions). Psychopathy is a complex psychiatric disorder and models explaining associated behavior should be advanced to adequately capture that complexity.…”

Pathways to antisocial behavior: a framework to improve diagnostics and tailor therapeutic interventions

“…However, the dimensional model turned out to be too complex for clinical practice in the developmental phase of the DSM-5 ( Krueger and Markon, 2014 ), meaning that in line with earlier versions of the DSM, ASPD sustained to be defined with mainly behavioral criteria. Several authors mentioned that the behavioral criteria used for classifying ASPD are just a limited representation of the complexity of ASPD and its underlying etiologies ( Brazil et al, 2018 ; Jurjako et al, 2020 ; Münch et al, 2020 ; Rokop et al, 2021 ).…”

The Societal Response to Psychopathy in the Community

“…Several types of research, concentrating mostly on the offender population, have addressed the challenge that is posed by the harmfulness of psychopathy. Theoretical and empirical investigations on the nature and causes of psychopathy to devise effective interventions are fundamental (Brazil et al, 2018; Jurjako et al, 2020). However, also are relevant investigations of ethical and legal norms or principles, that should determine appropriate social or clinical responses to the harm caused by individuals with elevated psychopathic traits.…”