Neural responses to morally laden interactions in female inmates with psychopathy

•Psychopathic personality traits do not predict emotional accuracy in female inmates.•When viewing harmful interactions, PCL-R scores are associated with dlPFC response.•PCL-R scores are linked to lower functional connectivity seeded in amygdala and TPJ. Much of social cognition requires making infe...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:NeuroImage clinical 2021-01, Vol.30, p.102645-102645, Article 102645
Main Authors: Yoder, Keith J., Harenski, Carla, Kiehl, Kent A., Decety, Jean
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Antisocial Personality Disorder - diagnostic imaging
Brain - diagnostic imaging
Brain Mapping
Criminals
Decision-making
Emotion understanding
Empathy
Female
Female Psychopathy
Forensic neuroscience - Moral evaluation
Functional connectivity
Functional MRI
Humans
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Regular
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Summary:•Psychopathic personality traits do not predict emotional accuracy in female inmates.•When viewing harmful interactions, PCL-R scores are associated with dlPFC response.•PCL-R scores are linked to lower functional connectivity seeded in amygdala and TPJ. Much of social cognition requires making inferences about the mental and emotional states of others. Moreover, understanding the emotions of others is an important foundation for moral decision-making. Psychopathy is associated with both aberrant emotional understanding and atypical hemodynamic responses when viewing and evaluating morally laden social interactions. In the present functional MRI study, female inmates (N = 107) were asked to evaluate the likely emotional state of either the recipient or the initiator of harmful or helpful interactions. Psychopathy was assessed with the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R). PCL-R scores were not associated with differences in confidence or accuracy ratings. However, psychopathy scores were significantly related to increased hemodynamic response in right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex when viewing harmful interactions and decreased functional connectivity from right amygdala to inferior parietal cortex and insula, and from temporal parietal junction to dorsomedial prefrontal cortex. Overall, this work indicates that in females, psychopathy is associated with normal behavioral accuracy and confidence but alterations in neural network activity during moral decision-making.
ISSN:2213-1582
2213-1582
DOI:10.1016/j.nicl.2021.102645