The Disconnection of Psychopaths
Functional connectivity between the right amygdala and anterior vmPFC is reduced in psychopaths. From Fig. 2 of Motzkin et al., (2011).
What is psychopathy, exactly? According to Ermer and colleagues (2011):
Psychopathy is a serious personality disorder marked by affective and interpersonal deficiencies, as well as behavioral problems and antisocial tendencies (Cleckley, 1976). Affective and interpersonal traits (termed Factor 1) include callousness and a profound inability to experience remorse, guilt, and empathy; antisocial and behavioral problems (termed Factor 2) include impulsivity, stimulation seeking, and irresponsibility. These symptoms tend to manifest at an early age, continue throughout adulthood, and pervade numerous aspects of psychopaths’ daily functioning.
As for the brain regions implicated in psychopathy, dysfunction in the amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) have been suspected for quite some time (Abbott, 2001; Blair, 2007; Koenigs et al., 2011). From this perspective, a recent study on the structural and functional connectivity of these two regions (Motzkin et al., 2011) isn’t entirely groundbreaking. Read more…
Related articles
- Psychopathic traits in teenagers not cast in stone (sciencedaily.com)
- White Matter Deficits in Psychopathic Offenders and Correlation with Factor Structure (plosone.org)
- Can Genetics Predict Psychopathy? (drvitelli.typepad.com)
- A neurological basis for the lack of empathy in psychopaths (esciencenews.com)
Psychopath Resistance 
Interesting. If psychopathy can be proven to be a condition of the brain, i.e. failure of communication between amygdala and VPC, then what is the cause of sociopathic behavior? What causes groups of people to adopt the characteristics of a psychopath when they presumably don’t have the same physiological constraints?
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That’s a question for behavior scientists, sociologists, and anthropologists.
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