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Abnormal temporal and prefrontal cortical gray matter thinning in psychopaths

Molecular Psychiatry volume 14, pages 561–562 (2009)Cite this article

Psychopathy is a complex clinical condition conceptualized as a combination of personality features, including shallow affect and egocentricity, as well as behavioral features including impulsivity and poor behavioral controls.1 It has been hypothesized that deficits in the fronto-temporal neural circuit, particularly the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, medial temporal regions and cingulate cortex, may play crucial roles in the neurobiological bases of psychopathy.2, 3 Prefrontal impairments, specifically, have been linked to poor decision making, whereas deficits in the temporal regions have been argued to contribute to the lack of emotion and social dysfunction in psychopathic individuals. We employed a cortical pattern-matching method,4 to investigate localized differences in cortical gray matter thickness in psychopaths compared with that in non-psychopathic controls. We also examined whether the abnormality in cortical thickness is associated differentially with the four distinct facets of psychopathy (namely, Interpersonal, Affective, Lifestyle and Antisocial1).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurology, Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    Y Yang, A W Toga & K L Narr

  2. Department of Criminology, Psychiatry, and Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, PA, USA,

    A Raine

  3. Department of Radiology, U.S.C. School of Medicine, Los Angeles, CA, USA

    P Colletti

Authors
  1. Y Yang
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  2. A Raine
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  3. P Colletti
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  4. A W Toga
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  5. K L Narr
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Correspondence to Y Yang.

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Yang, Y., Raine, A., Colletti, P. et al. Abnormal temporal and prefrontal cortical gray matter thinning in psychopaths. Mol Psychiatry 14, 561–562 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/mp.2009.12

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