TY - JOUR
T1 - Functional connectivity bias in the prefrontal cortex of psychopaths
AU - Contreras-Rodríguez, Oren
AU - Pujol, Jesus
AU - Batalla, Iolanda
AU - Harrison, Ben J.
AU - Soriano-Mas, Carles
AU - Deus, Joan
AU - López-Solà, Marina
AU - Macià, Dídac
AU - Pera, Vanessa
AU - Hernández-Ribas, Rosa
AU - Pifarré, Josep
AU - Menchón, José M.
AU - Cardoner, Narcís
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias de la Seguridad Social of Spain Grant Nos. PI050884 and PI050884 , the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación of Spain Grant No. SAF2010-19434 , the Departament de Justícia de la Generalitat de Catalunya, a National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia Clinical Career Development Award (I.D. 628509; BJH), a “Miguel Servet” contract from the Carlos III Health Institute (CP10/00604; CS-M), and the Beatriu de Pinós-A postdoctoral fellowship (2010_BP_A_00136) of the Government of Catalunya (ML-S). JD and ML-S are part of the Research Group SGR1450 of the Catalonia Government. We thank the Secretaria de Serveis Penitenciaris Rehabilitació i Justícia Juvenil and the Centres Penitenciaris de Catalunya for their collaboration. The authors report no biomedical financial interests or potential conflicts of interest.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Society of Biological Psychiatry.
Copyright:
Copyright 2015 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2015/11/1
Y1 - 2015/11/1
N2 - Background Psychopathy is characterized by a distinctive interpersonal style that combines callous-unemotional traits with inflexible and antisocial behavior. Traditional emotion-based perspectives link emotional impairment mostly to alterations in amygdala-ventromedial frontal circuits. However, these models alone cannot explain why individuals with psychopathy can regularly benefit from emotional information when placed on their focus of attention and why they are more resistant to interference from nonaffective contextual cues. The present study aimed to identify abnormal or distinctive functional links between and within emotional and cognitive brain systems in the psychopathic brain to characterize further the neural bases of psychopathy. Methods High-resolution anatomic magnetic resonance imaging with a functional sequence acquired in the resting state was used to assess 22 subjects with psychopathy and 22 control subjects. Anatomic and functional connectivity alterations were investigated first using a whole-brain analysis. Brain regions showing overlapping anatomic and functional changes were examined further using seed-based functional connectivity mapping. Results Subjects with psychopathy showed gray matter reduction involving prefrontal cortex, paralimbic, and limbic structures. Anatomic changes overlapped with areas showing increased degree of functional connectivity at the medial-dorsal frontal cortex. Subsequent functional seed-based connectivity mapping revealed a pattern of reduced functional connectivity of prefrontal areas with limbic-paralimbic structures and enhanced connectivity within the dorsal frontal lobe in subjects with psychopathy. Conclusions 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.
AB - Background Psychopathy is characterized by a distinctive interpersonal style that combines callous-unemotional traits with inflexible and antisocial behavior. Traditional emotion-based perspectives link emotional impairment mostly to alterations in amygdala-ventromedial frontal circuits. However, these models alone cannot explain why individuals with psychopathy can regularly benefit from emotional information when placed on their focus of attention and why they are more resistant to interference from nonaffective contextual cues. The present study aimed to identify abnormal or distinctive functional links between and within emotional and cognitive brain systems in the psychopathic brain to characterize further the neural bases of psychopathy. Methods High-resolution anatomic magnetic resonance imaging with a functional sequence acquired in the resting state was used to assess 22 subjects with psychopathy and 22 control subjects. Anatomic and functional connectivity alterations were investigated first using a whole-brain analysis. Brain regions showing overlapping anatomic and functional changes were examined further using seed-based functional connectivity mapping. Results Subjects with psychopathy showed gray matter reduction involving prefrontal cortex, paralimbic, and limbic structures. Anatomic changes overlapped with areas showing increased degree of functional connectivity at the medial-dorsal frontal cortex. Subsequent functional seed-based connectivity mapping revealed a pattern of reduced functional connectivity of prefrontal areas with limbic-paralimbic structures and enhanced connectivity within the dorsal frontal lobe in subjects with psychopathy. Conclusions 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.
KW - Amygdala
KW - Dorsal executive network
KW - Flexible self-regulation
KW - Functional magnetic resonance imaging
KW - Psychopathy
KW - Resting-state functional connectivity
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84942888411&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.biopsych.2014.03.007
DO - 10.1016/j.biopsych.2014.03.007
M3 - Article
C2 - 24742618
SN - 0006-3223
VL - 78
SP - 647
EP - 655
JO - Biological Psychiatry
JF - Biological Psychiatry
IS - 9
ER -