Psychopaths' Brains Aren't Wired To Show Empathy, Study Finds

[Navigator]

More mainstream media outlets are running articles on the topic.


_http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/24/psychopath-brain-hardwiring-concern-for-others_n_3149856.html

Psychopaths are unable to show empathy toward others because their brains aren't wired to do so, according to a new study in JAMA Psychiatry.

Researchers from the University of Chicago used brain imaging technology to find that psychopaths have less activation in certain parts of the brain and high activation in other parts of the brain, compared with people who are not psychopaths, in response to scenarios of people being purposely hurt.

Scientific American provides a good definition of a psychopath:

Superficially charming, psychopaths tend to make a good first impression on others and often strike observers as remarkably normal. Yet they are self-centered, dishonest and undependable, and at times they engage in irresponsible behavior for no apparent reason other than the sheer fun of it. Largely devoid of guilt, empathy and love, they have casual and callous interpersonal and romantic relationships.

In the new study, researchers conducted functional MRI brain imaging on 80 prisoners ages 18 to 50, all of whom had tests done to measure their levels of psychopathy. Then, they posed some scenarios of someone being hurt purposely, as well as had them watch videos of pained facial expressions.

Researchers found that those who scored higher on the psychopathy test experienced less activation in the amygdala, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, lateral orbitofrontal cortex, and periaqueductal gray brain regions, compared with those who scored lower on the test. Those who scored higher on the psychopathy test had more activation of the striatum and insula brain regions -- the insula brain region is known to play a role in emotion, researchers noted.

"This is the first time that neural processes associated with empathic processing have been directly examined in individuals with psychopathy, especially in response to the perception of other people in pain or distress," study researcher Jean Decety, a professor of psychiatry and psychology at the University of Chicago, said in a statement.

In the past, British researchers found that psychopaths actually have differences in their brain structure, compared with people who aren't psychopaths. A study published last year in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry and conducted on violent criminals in Britain showed that psychopaths have less gray matter in the anterior rostral prefrontal cortex brain region, Reuters reported.

 

[Mark7]

Nice to see more articles about psychopathy show up in the mainstream! What would really be nice is an app with included detector array...

 

[Laura]

Unfortunately, again, it is a study of criminal psychopaths. But, we take what we can get and extrapolate.

 

[Possibility of Being]

A recent follow-up study, not in MSM yet, as far as I know. Same subjects: criminal psychopaths; for possible application in rehabilitation ()

http://www.frontiersin.org/human_neuroscience/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00489/abstract

An fMRI study of affective perspective taking in individuals with psychopathy: imagining another in pain does not evoke empathy
Jean Decety1,2*, Chenyi Chen1, Carla Harenski3,4 and Kent A. Kiehl3,4

While it is well established that individuals with psychopathy have a marked deficit in affective arousal, emotional empathy, and caring for the well-being of others, the extent to which perspective taking can elicit an emotional response has not yet been studied despite its potential application in rehabilitation. In healthy individuals, affective perspective taking has proven to be an effective means to elicit empathy and concern for others. To examine neural responses in individuals who vary in psychopathy during affective perspective taking, 121 incarcerated males, classified as high (n = 37; Hare psychopathy checklist-revised, PCL-R ≥ 30), intermediate (n = 44; PCL-R between 21 and 29), and low (n = 40; PCL-R ≤ 20) psychopaths, were scanned while viewing stimuli depicting bodily injuries and adopting an imagine-self and an imagine-other perspective. During the imagine-self perspective, participants with high psychopathy showed a typical response within the network involved in empathy for pain, including the anterior insula (aINS), anterior midcingulate cortex (aMCC), supplementary motor area (SMA), inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), somatosensory cortex, and right amygdala. Conversely, during the imagine-other perspective, psychopaths exhibited an atypical pattern of brain activation and effective connectivity seeded in the anterior insula and amygdala with the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). The response in the amygdala and insula was inversely correlated with PCL-R Factor 1 (interpersonal/affective) during the imagine-other perspective. In high psychopaths, scores on PCL-R Factor 1 predicted the neural response in ventral striatum when imagining others in pain. These patterns of brain activation and effective connectivity associated with differential perspective-taking provide a better understanding of empathy dysfunction in psychopathy, and have the potential to inform intervention programs for this complex clinical problem.