Review
Special Issue: Cognition in Neuropsychiatric Disorders
The psychopath magnetized: insights from brain imaging

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Psychopaths commit a disproportionate amount of violent crime, and this places a substantial economic and emotional burden on society. Elucidation of the neural correlates of psychopathy may lead to improved management and treatment of the condition. Although some methodological issues remain, the neuroimaging literature is generally converging on a set of brain regions and circuits that are consistently implicated in the condition: the orbitofrontal cortex, amygdala, and the anterior and posterior cingulate and adjacent (para)limbic structures. We discuss these findings in the context of extant theories of psychopathy and highlight the potential legal and policy implications of this body of work.

Section snippets

Psychopathy: the personality disorder

Psychopathy is a construct characterized by symptoms of emotional detachment and a propensity for disinhibited, impulsive behavior combined with a general callousness and lack of insight for the impact such behavior has on others [1]. Psychopathy is among the most important psychological constructs in legal settings, having strong predictive utility for recidivism (the tendency to re-offend), institutional adjustment and treatment outcomes 2, 3. Indeed, within 1 year of release, psychopaths are

Neurobiological models of psychopathy

Determination of the physiological correlates of psychopathy has been a concern of empirical research since at least the 1950s, when it was recognized that psychopaths fail to show appropriate autonomic responses to aversive stimuli [25]. Over the years, many models of psychopathy have been suggested, which we summarize below.

A common thread among models of psychopathy has emphasized abnormalities in the integration of emotional response into behavior, essentially recognizing aversive

Recent neuroimaging and psychopathy

Escalating attention to psychopathy has been accompanied by a meteoric rise in neuroimaging research on this topic, partly because of rapidly improving technology and methodological advances. This trend reveals a pressing need for frequent review and synthesis of this information, along with careful consideration of methodological variation.

Recent reviews indicate that the most common structural and functional abnormalities observed in the brains of psychopaths are distributed in frontal and

Concluding remarks

The neuroscience of psychopathy is a field undergoing rapid growth and, like any field in its nascent stages, is vulnerable to methodological inconsistencies and subsequent interpretive variation. Particularly relevant are issues surrounding the operationalization of psychopathy, such as the assessment tools implemented and the cutoffs used to designate psychopathy. Other issues include variation in control groups, proper statistical control over potentially confounding variables including

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