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Purpose Impaired emotional learning is one of the hallmark features of psychopathy. The abnormal processing of cues of reward and punishment, and its impact in decision-making, has mostly been supported by laboratorial studies. In this report, we have analysed the effect of psychopathy in the formation of attitudes towards committing theft, and its impact in the intention to reoffend after release. Methods A self-report instrument to characterize the predictors of the intention to reoffend was developed and administrated, along with the Triarchic Psychopathy Measure, to a sample of 91 male inmates convicted for theft. Results The perceived rewards of theft mediated the association between psychopathic traits and the intention to reoffend. The analysis of the expectancy and value components of the attitude towards theft showed that psychopathic traits are associated with reduced expectancy of negative outcomes and increased expectancy of positive outcomes as a consequence of reoffending. Conclusions Our results add support to the role of disrupted expectancy-value learning and increased reward sensitivity as mediators of the increased probability to reoffend in psychopathy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Connectivity‐based parcellation (CBP) methods are used to define homogenous and biologically meaningful parcels or nodes—the foundations of brain network fingerprinting—by grouping voxels with similar patterns of brain connectivity. However, we still lack a gold standard method and the use of CBPs to study the aging brain remains scarce. Our study proposes a novel CBP method from diffusion MRI data and shows its potential to produce a more accurate characterization of the longitudinal alterations in brain network topology occurring in aging. For this, we constructed whole‐brain connectivity maps from diffusion MRI data of two datasets: an aging cohort evaluated at two timepoints (mean interval time: 52.8 ± 7.24 months) and a normative adult cohort—MGH‐HCP. State‐of‐the‐art clustering techniques were used to identify the best performing technique. Furthermore, we developed a new metric (connectivity homogeneity fingerprint [CHF]) to evaluate the success of the final CBP in improving regional/global structural connectivity homogeneity. Our results show that our method successfully generates highly homogeneous parcels, as described by the significantly larger CHF score of the resulting parcellation, when compared to the original. Additionally, we demonstrated that the developed parcellation provides a robust anatomical framework to assess longitudinal changes in the aging brain. Our results reveal that aging is characterized by a reorganization of the brain's structural network involving the decrease of intra‐hemispheric, increase of inter‐hemispheric connectivity, and topological rearrangement. Overall, this study proposes a new methodology to perform accurate and robust evaluations of CBP of the human brain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Structural brain asymmetries have been associated with cognition. However, it is not known to what extent neuropsychological parameters and structural laterality covary with aging. Seventy‐five subjects drawn from a larger normal aging cohort were evaluated in terms of MRI and neuropsychological parameters at two moments (M1 and M2), 18 months apart. In this time frame, asymmetry as measured by structural laterality index (ΔLI) was stable regarding both direction and magnitude in all areas. However, a significantly higher dispersion for this variation was observed in subcortical over cortical areas. Subjects with extreme increase in rightward lateralization of the caudate revealed increased M1 to M2 Stroop interference scores, but also a worsening of general cognition (MMSE). In contrast, subjects showing extreme increase in leftward lateralization of the thalamus presented higher increase in Stroop interference scores. In conclusion, while a decline in cognitive function was observed in the entire sample, regional brain asymmetries were relatively stable. Neuropsychological trajectories were associated with laterality changes in subcortical regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present report we analyzed the associations between the facets of the recent Triarchic Measure of Psychopathy (TriPM) and distinct dimensions of empathy, morality, and antisocial behavior. Three hundred and seventy-four participants from the community completed the TriPM, the Interpersonal Reactivity Index and the Moral Foundations Questionnaire. A subset of one hundred and three participants completed a self-reported delinquency scale. In line with the multidimensional nature of the TriPM, we found that different facets of psychopathy were associated with distinct domains of empathy and morality. In addition, every TriPM subscale was positively related to self-reported delinquency, although meanness lost its predictive power when its shared variance with disinhibition was controlled. Our results lend conceptual validity to each of the Triarchic model’s traits and suggest that psychopathy should not be regarded as a unitary construct, but rather as a combination of dimensional traits with distinct etiologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the relation between psychopathic traits and the brain response to facial emotion by analyzing the N170 component of the ERP. Fifty-four healthy participants were assessed for psychopathic traits and exposed to images of emotional and neutral faces with varying spatial frequency content. The N170 was modulated by the emotional expressions, irrespective of psychopathic traits. Fearless dominance was associated with a reduced N170, driven by the low spatial frequency components of the stimuli, and dependent on the tectopulvinar visual pathway. Conversely, coldheartedness was related to overall enhanced N170, suggesting mediation by geniculostriate processing. Results suggest that different dimensions of psychopathy are related to distinct facial emotion processing mechanisms and support the existence of both amygdala deficits and compensatory engagement of cortical structures for emotional processing in psychopathy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chronic pain is frequently accompanied by the manifestation of emotional disturbances and cognitive deficits. While a causality relation between pain and emotional/cognitive disturbances is generally assumed, several observations suggest a temporal dissociation and independent mechanisms. We therefore studied Sprague‐Dawley rats that presented a natural resistance to pain manifestation in a neuropathy model (spared nerve injury [SNI]) and compared their performance in a battery of behavioral paradigms—anxiety, depression and fear memory—with animals that presented a pain phenotype. Afterward, we performed an extensive volumetric analysis across prefrontal, orbitofrontal and insular cortical areas. The majority of SNI animals manifested mechanical allodynia (low threshold [LT]), but 13% were similar to Sham controls (high threshold [HT]). Readouts of spontaneous hypersensivity (paw flinches) were also significantly reduced in HT and correlated with allodynia. To increase the specificity of our findings, we segregated the SNI animals in those with left (SNI‐L) and right (SNI‐R) lesions and the lack of association between pain and behavior still remains. Left‐lesioned animals, independent of the LT or HT phenotype, presented increased anxiety‐like behaviors and decreased well‐being. In contrast, we found that the insular cortex (agranular division) was significantly smaller in HT than in LT. To conclude, pain and emotional disturbances observed following nerve injury are to some extent segregated phenomena. Also, HT and LT SNI presented differences in insular volumes, an area vastly implicated in pain perception, suggesting a supraspinal involvement in the manifestation of these phenotypes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]