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Facial emotion processing in criminal psychopathy. Preliminary functional magnetic resonance imaging study.
- Source :
- British Journal of Psychiatry; Dec2006, Vol. 189, p533-539, 7p
- Publication Year :
- 2006
-
Abstract
- <bold>Background: </bold>It has been suggested that people with psychopathic disorders lack empathy because they have deficits in processing distress cues (e.g. fearful facial expressions).<bold>Aims: </bold>To investigate brain function when individuals with psychopathy and a control group process facial emotion.<bold>Method: </bold>Using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging we compared six people scoring > or =25 on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised and nine non-psychopathic healthy volunteers during an implicit emotion processing task using fearful, happy and neutral faces.<bold>Results: </bold>The psychopathy group showed significantly less activation than the control group in fusiform and extrastriate cortices when processing both facial emotions. However, emotion type affected response pattern. Both groups increased fusiform and extrastriate cortex activation when processing happy faces compared with neutral faces, but this increase was significantly smaller in the psychopathy group. In contrast, when processing fearful faces compared with neutral faces, the control group showed increased activation but the psychopathy group decreased activation in the fusiform gyrus.<bold>Conclusions: </bold>People with psychopathy have biological differences from controls when processing facial emotion, and the pattern of response differs according to emotion type. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Subjects :
- FACIAL expression
EMOTIONS
CRIMINAL psychology
PSYCHOPATHY
MAGNETIC resonance imaging
DIAGNOSTIC imaging
MENTAL illness
PEOPLE with mental illness
NONVERBAL cues
ANTISOCIAL personality disorders
BRAIN mapping
FORENSIC psychiatry
DIGITAL image processing
RECOGNITION (Psychology)
VISUAL perception
PSYCHOLOGICAL factors
DIAGNOSIS
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 00071250
- Volume :
- 189
- Database :
- Complementary Index
- Journal :
- British Journal of Psychiatry
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 25195921
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.bp.106.021410