Exploring the neural correlates of (altered) moral cognition in psychopaths

Abstract

Research into the neurofunctional mechanisms of psychopathy has gathered momentum over the last years. Previous neuroimaging studies have identified general changes in brain activity of psychopaths. In an exploratory meta-analysis, we here investigated the neural correlates of impaired moral cognition in psychopaths. Our analyses replicated general effects in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, lateral prefrontal cortex, fronto-insular cortex, and amygdala, which have been reported recently. In addition, we found aberrant brain activity in the midbrain and inferior parietal cortex.Our preliminary findings suggest that alterations in both regions may represent more specific functional brain changes related to (altered) moral cognition in psychopaths. Furthermore, future studies including a more comprehensive corpus of neuroimaging studies on moral cognition in psychopaths should re-examine this notion.

Structural imaging studies of patients with chronic pain: an anatomical likelihood estimate meta-analysis

“…It should be noted that TFCE has only recently begun to be used in neuroimaging meta-analyses. 32,57,89,90 Ongoing work comparing the statistical properties of TFCE and cFWE in meta-analyses may provide useful data on the relative strengths and weaknesses of the 2 approaches.…”

Culturally Sensitive and Contextually Adapted Exemplars of Character Development: Implications for Reimagining Frameworks

“…In terms of DMN connectivity, compared with ordinary populations, populations with psychopathy demonstrated significantly weaker connectivity (Li et al, 2014;Pujol et al, 2012) as well as dysregulation in the network (Deming & Koenigs, 2020). Similarly, within the context of moral functioning, participants with psychopathy were found to demonstrate significantly lower activity in the DMN-related regions compared with ordinary participants in an experimental study (Reniers et al, 2012) and a meta-analysis (Lenzen et al, 2021). These studies that examined populations with psychopathic traits suggest that the brain regions affiliated with the DMN constitute the brain network of morality and character, which plays fundamental roles in socio-moral functioning in general (Han, 2020;Raine, 2019).…”

Empathy: The Core of Morality

“…Therefore, the identification of a specific brain area (such as the ventromedial prefrontal cortex or the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex) as the centre of morality or empathy (Ferrari 2014b) is reductive, even more so when we consider functions whose complexity necessarily requires the involvement of other areas, such as the limbic, sensory and motor systems. Thus, studies that seek to relate certain brain regions to morality and empathy, mainly using functional neuroimaging assessment of psychopaths, have several conceptual, methodological and phenomenological limitations (Lenzen et al 2021;Blair 2007).…”