The neural signatures of distinct psychopathic traits

Abstract

Recent studies suggest that psychopathy may be associated with dysfunction in the neural circuitry supporting both threat- and reward-related processes. However, these studies have involved small samples and often focused on extreme groups. Thus, it is unclear to what extent current findings may generalize to psychopathic traits in the general population. Furthermore, no studies have systematically and simultaneously assessed associations between distinct psychopathy facets and both threat- and reward-related brain function in the same sample of participants. Here, we examined the relationship between threat-related amygdala reactivity and reward-related ventral striatum (VS) reactivity and variation in four facets of self-reported psychopathy in a sample of 200 young adults. Path models indicated that amygdala reactivity to fearful facial expressions is negatively associated with the interpersonal facet of psychopathy, whereas amygdala reactivity to angry facial expressions is positively associated with the lifestyle facet. Furthermore, these models revealed that differential VS reactivity to positive versus negative feedback is negatively associated with the lifestyle facet. There was suggestive evidence for gender-specific patterns of association between brain function and psychopathy facets. Our findings are the first to document differential associations between both threat- and reward-related neural processes and distinct facets of psychopathy and thus provide a more comprehensive picture of the pattern of neural vulnerabilities that may predispose to maladaptive outcomes associated with psychopathy.

Psychopathic individuals exhibit but do not avoid regret during counterfactual decision making

“…With regard to psychopathy, structural imaging studies have found reduced surface area, cortical thickness, and gray matter volume within OFC (38). Accordingly, psychopathic individuals exhibit blunted OFC activation during reward learning, empathy, and emotion appraisal paradigms (12,13,15), and show reduced functional and structural connectivity between OFC and subcortical zones (e.g., amygdala and striatum) (10,39). Taken together, findings from these parallel literatures suggest that diminished behavioral regret sensitivity may be a consequence of OFC dysfunction or, more likely, dysconnectivity in psychopathic individuals.…”

“…Additionally, psychopathic individuals show reduced functional and structural connectivity between amygdala and medial orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC) (10), accompanied by blunted corticolimbic engagement during moral decision making (11), aversive conditioning (6, 7), affective perspective taking (12), and in response to empathogenic (13) and facial emotion stimuli (14). Moreover, this association between corticolimbic dysfunction and psychopathy appears largely to be driven by interpersonalaffective symptoms rather than by antisocial-lifestyle features (13)(14)(15). Taken together, this work supports a model in which the affective deficits so central to psychopathy arise from dysfunction within brain networks that support the generation and evaluation of emotional states, and that link such states to social cues through associative mechanisms.…”

Clinical neuroprediction: Amygdala reactivity predicts depressive symptoms 2 years later

“…A canonical face processing task (Hariri et al, 2000) was collected at age 20 (see Supplementary Figure S1). The experimental task included four face processing blocks interleaved with five sensorimotor control blocks (Manuck et al, 2007;Carré et al, 2012;Hyde et al, 2014Hyde et al, , 2015. In the face processing block participants viewed one face in the upper half of the screen and two faces in the bottom half of the screen.…”

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

“…Very few studies, though, have actually investigated amygdala functional networks in relation to psychopathy, yielding conflicting results of both enhanced and diminished network integrity [Aghajani et al, 2016; Contreras‐Rodriguez et al, 2015; Decety et al, 2013a; Finger et al, 2012; Marsh et al, 2011; Motzkin et al, 2011; Yoder et al, 2015]. Most of these studies additionally examined psychopathy as a categorical or unidimensional construct, overlooking its behaviorally and neuronally separable trait assemblies [Carre et al, 2013; Cohn et al, 2014, 2015; Philippi et al, 2015; Sadeh and Verona, 2008; Seara‐Cardoso and Viding, 2014]. For instance, while affective and interpersonal traits of psychopathy relate to blunted affective reactivity within emotion processing neurocircuitries (e.g., insula, amygdala, striatum), the opposite seems to account for behavioral psychopathic tendencies [Blair, 2013a; Buckholtz et al, 2010; Carre et al, 2013; Cohn et al, 2014, 2015b2014; Seara‐Cardoso and Viding, 2014].…”

“…Most of these studies additionally examined psychopathy as a categorical or unidimensional construct, overlooking its behaviorally and neuronally separable trait assemblies [Carre et al, 2013; Cohn et al, 2014, 2015; Philippi et al, 2015; Sadeh and Verona, 2008; Seara‐Cardoso and Viding, 2014]. For instance, while affective and interpersonal traits of psychopathy relate to blunted affective reactivity within emotion processing neurocircuitries (e.g., insula, amygdala, striatum), the opposite seems to account for behavioral psychopathic tendencies [Blair, 2013a; Buckholtz et al, 2010; Carre et al, 2013; Cohn et al, 2014, 2015b2014; Seara‐Cardoso and Viding, 2014]. Moreover, though amygdala subregional defects are suggested in psychopathy [Moul et al, 2012], the functionality and connectivity of different amygdala subnuclei is typically disregarded in neurocircuit‐level analyses of psychopathic personality.…”