Brain Response to Empathy-Eliciting Scenarios Involving Pain in Incarcerated Individuals With Psychopathy

Decety, Jean; Skelly, Laurie R.; Kiehl, Kent A.

doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2013.27

Cited by 230 publications

(171 citation statements)

References 60 publications

(95 reference statements)

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“…The link between TPJ functioning and social-cognitive processes in IED moreover fits with deficiencies in the neural mechanisms of social-cognitive functioning during perspective taking, empathy, and theory-of-mind tasks in psychopathy (Anderson and Kiehl, 2012;Blair and Lee, 2013;Decety et al, 2013a) that is also clearly characterized by aggressive behavior, although to a larger extend premeditated rather than impulsive. It is of note however that the current sample scored substantially lower on the PCL than the cutoff for psychopathology (Decety et al, 2013b) and more research is needed to further investigate the differences and similarities in the neural mechanism of social-cognitive functioning between IED and psychopathy.…”

Section: Escitalopram Effects In Iedmentioning

confidence: 71%

Effects of Escitalopram Administration on Face Processing in Intermittent Explosive Disorder: An fMRI Study

Cremers

Lee

Keedy

et al. 2015

Neuropsychopharmacol

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The neurobiological underpinnings of intermittent explosive disorder (IED) are traditionally linked to deficiencies in the serotonergic system. In this study, we investigated the effects of escitalopram, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), on brain activation during face processing. We expected that escitalopram would reduce amygdala activity in IED and in addition, we explored the effect in other social-emotional-related brain regions. A total of 17 subjects with current IED and 14 healthy controls participated in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, counterbalanced fMRI face processing study. The analysis focused on the faces compared to a fixation baseline contrast, and a factorial model with Group as between-subject and Drug as within-subject factor was tested. Group × Drug interaction effects were found in the amygdala (small volume corrected) and the left temporal parietal junction (TPJ; whole-brain corrected). Escitalopram increased amygdala activation in controls, but surprisingly not in IED. However, the TPJ showed increased activity in IED on escitalopram compared with placebo. The TPJ is associated with social-cognitive processes, such as perspective taking and empathy. The TPJ findings suggest that SSRI administration may reduce aggressive tendencies towards other people by enhancing these social-cognitive processes. Future research should further elucidate the long-term effects of SSRIs on various social-emotional tasks in IED.

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Section: Escitalopram Effects In Iedmentioning

confidence: 71%

Effects of Escitalopram Administration on Face Processing in Intermittent Explosive Disorder: An fMRI Study

Cremers

Lee

Keedy

et al. 2015

Neuropsychopharmacol

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“…Anomalies in these processes have been suggested in relation to the callous and unemotional features of psychopathy [Bird and Viding, 2014; Blair, 2013a; Frick and Viding, 2009], and tentatively ascribed to perturbations within the frontolimbic system discussed here [Aghajani et al, 2016; Anderson and Kiehl, 2012; Blair, 2013a, 2013b; Deeley et al, 2006; Decety et al, 2013b; Michalska et al, 2015; Moul et al, 2012]. Given the alleged interface function the CMA serves between neocortical and visceromotor structures [Bienkowski and Rinaman, 2013; Keifer et al, 2015; Pessoa, 2011], abnormalities in its neural activity and large‐scale connectivity might be particularly detrimental to this frontolimbic system, and contribute plausibly to affective traits of psychopathy.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 82%

Dissociable relations between amygdala subregional networks and psychopathy trait dimensions in conduct‐disordered juvenile offenders

Aghajani

Colins

Klapwijk

et al. 2016

Human Brain Mapping

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Psychopathy is a serious psychiatric phenomenon characterized by a pathological constellation of affective (e.g., callous, unemotional), interpersonal (e.g., manipulative, egocentric), and behavioral (e.g., impulsive, irresponsible) personality traits. Though amygdala subregional defects are suggested in psychopathy, the functionality and connectivity of different amygdala subnuclei is typically disregarded in neurocircuit‐level analyses of psychopathic personality. Hence, little is known of how amygdala subregional networks may contribute to psychopathy and its underlying trait assemblies in severely antisocial people. We addressed this important issue by uniquely examining the intrinsic functional connectivity of basolateral (BLA) and centromedial (CMA) amygdala networks in relation to affective, interpersonal, and behavioral traits of psychopathy, in conduct‐disordered juveniles with a history of serious delinquency (N = 50, mean age = 16.83 ± 1.32). As predicted, amygdalar connectivity profiles exhibited dissociable relations with different traits of psychopathy. Interpersonal psychopathic traits not only related to increased connectivity of BLA and CMA with a corticostriatal network formation accommodating reward processing, but also predicted stronger CMA connectivity with a network of cortical midline structures supporting sociocognitive processes. In contrast, affective psychopathic traits related to diminished CMA connectivity with a frontolimbic network serving salience processing and affective responding. Finally, behavioral psychopathic traits related to heightened BLA connectivity with a frontoparietal cluster implicated in regulatory executive functioning. We suggest that these trait‐specific shifts in amygdalar connectivity could be particularly relevant to the psychopathic phenotype, as they may fuel a self‐centered, emotionally cold, and behaviorally disinhibited profile. Hum Brain Mapp 37:4017–4033, 2016. © 2016 The Authors Human Brain Mapping Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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“…Abnormalities in emotion recognition are central to numerous psychiatric conditions including ASD [96][97][98][99][100] and deficits in OT and insular cortex activity and connectivity are well documented correlates of symptom severity for many of these conditions 46,101,102 . Our results suggest that disruption of insula function may be key to pathophysiology in behaviors that depend upon social decisions regarding the emotions of others.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Insular Cortex Mediates Approach and Avoidance Responses to Social Affective Stimuli

Rogers

Varela

Gribbons

et al. 2017

Preprint

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Social animals detect the affective states of others and utilize this information to orchestrate appropriate social interactions. Social affective behaviors include cooperation, reproductive acts and avoiding sick individuals. In a social affective behavioral test in which experimental adult male rats were given the choice to interact with either naive or stressed conspecifics, the experimental rats demonstrated both approach and avoidant behaviors towards the conspecific, depending upon the age of the conspecific; experimental adult rats approached the stressed juvenile but avoided the stressed adult. Optogenetic inhibition of the insular cortex, a region anatomically positioned to contribute to social cognition, disrupted these behaviors. Receptors for the social nonapeptide oxytocin (OT) are found in high density within the insular cortex and here oxytocin increased intrinsic excitability and synaptic efficacy in acute insular cortex slices. Blockade of oxytocin receptors (OTRs) in the insula eliminated the effect of conspecific stress on approach behavior, while insular administration of OT recapitulated the behaviors typically observed in response to stressed conspecifics. Network analysis using Fos immunoreactivity identified functional connectivity between the insular cortex and the network of regions involved in social decision making. These results implicate insular cortex as a novel target of OT and suggest that insula is a key component in the circuit underlying age-dependent social responses to stressed conspecifics.Social animals, including humans, have an enormous repertoire of behavioral expressions that provide for the transmission of one's affective state to other members of the group 1-3 . Sensory and perceptive systems in the "social decision-making network" (SDMN) which consists of the social brain network 4 and the mesolimbic reward system 5 allow one to appraise these social stimuli and integrate them with past experiences, situational, and somatic factors to shape specific behavioral responses 6 . In addition to the SDMN, growing evidence implicates insular cortex in responding to socioemotional stimuli in humans. When tasked to identify the emotion of another from a facial expression, or to observe another suffer a painful stimulation, a reliable neural correlate is relative increase in the blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) signal in the insular cortex 7,8 . Accordingly, emotion recognition and empathic deficits have been reported among individuals with insular cortex lesions [9][10][11][12] . Empathic processes are also disrupted in autism spectrum 1 Department of Psychology, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467, USA 2 These authors made equal contributions to this work. *Corresponding Author: John P. Christianson, Department of Psychology, Boston College, 140 Commonwealth Avenue, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467 USA, Email: j.christianson@bc.edu, Phone: +1-617-552-3970.A note about the preprint. This manuscript was submitted to bioRxiv.org after multiple rounds of peer review. The manuscrip...

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Brain Response to Empathy-Eliciting Scenarios Involving Pain in Incarcerated Individuals With Psychopathy

Cited by 230 publications

References 60 publications

Effects of Escitalopram Administration on Face Processing in Intermittent Explosive Disorder: An fMRI Study

Effects of Escitalopram Administration on Face Processing in Intermittent Explosive Disorder: An fMRI Study

Dissociable relations between amygdala subregional networks and psychopathy trait dimensions in conduct‐disordered juvenile offenders

Insular Cortex Mediates Approach and Avoidance Responses to Social Affective Stimuli

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