Hippocampal structural asymmetry in unsuccessful psychopaths

Structural and functional hippocampal abnormalities have been previously reported in institutionalized psychopathic and aggressive populations. This study assessed whether prior findings of a right greater than left (R > L) functional asymmetry in caught violent offenders generalize to the struct...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Biological psychiatry (1969) 2004-01, Vol.55 (2), p.185-191
Main Authors: Raine, Adrian, Ishikawa, Sharon S, Arce, Estibaliz, Lencz, Todd, Knuth, Kevin H, Bihrle, Susan, LaCasse, Lori, Colletti, Patrick
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Adult and adolescent clinical studies
Analysis of Variance
asymmetry
Biological and medical sciences
Case-Control Studies
Demography
Functional Laterality
Hippocampus
Hippocampus - abnormalities
Hippocampus - pathology
Humans
Magnetic Resonance Imaging - methods
Male
Medical sciences
MRI
neurodevelopment
Neuropsychological Tests
Personality Disorders - classification
Personality Disorders - pathology
Psychiatric Status Rating Scales
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
psychopathy
Social behavior disorders. Criminal behavior. Delinquency
trauma
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Summary:Structural and functional hippocampal abnormalities have been previously reported in institutionalized psychopathic and aggressive populations. This study assessed whether prior findings of a right greater than left (R > L) functional asymmetry in caught violent offenders generalize to the structural domain in unsuccessful, caught psychopaths. Left and right hippocampal volumes were assessed using structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in 23 control subjects, 16 unsuccessful psychopaths, and 12 successful (uncaught) community psychopaths and transformed into standardized space. Unsuccessful psychopaths showed an exaggerated structural hippocampal asymmetry (R > L) relative both to successful psychopaths and control subjects ( p < .007) that was localized to the anterior region. This effect could not be explained by environmental and diagnostic confounds and constitutes the first brain imaging analysis of successful and unsuccessful psychopaths. Atypical anterior hippocampal asymmetries in unsuccessful psychopaths may reflect an underlying neurodevelopmental abnormality that disrupts hippocampal-prefrontal circuitry, resulting in affect dysregulation, poor contextual fear conditioning, and insensitivity to cues predicting capture.
ISSN:0006-3223
1873-2402
DOI:10.1016/S0006-3223(03)00727-3