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Studying the Brains of Psychopaths
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Studying the Brains of Psychopaths
FMRI Scanning
FMRI
Empathetic Arousal= Amygdala, hypothalamus, anterior insula & orbitofrontal cortex
Perspective taking evokes empathy and concern for others.
Procedure
Procedure
121 Incarcerated Males- High, Medium or Low on rating of psychopathy
Participants when in the scanner were instructed to adopt either a self-perspective or an other-perspective while viewing visual stimuli depicting right hands and right feet of individuals in painful and non-painful situations
Results....
Results
When participants adopted the imagine-other perspective, a similar network was implicated, except for the right amygdala
Can you remember what this is responsible for? Think back to fight or flight....
What can we conclude from this about psychopaths?
ERP
Aimed to find out if individuals scoring high on trait psychopathy would show a
similar neural response in the affective sharing condition but reduced amplitudes during the
empathic concern task.
PPTs= 39 young adults- Community sample (non-institutionalised/ non- incarcerated sample). Completed various questionnaire items asking them demographics and psychopathic traits.
Trials
Trials in an ERP
Participants viewed pictures of hands and feet in painful or neutral situations and were asked to either estimate how much pain they thought they were in (affective sharing) or asked to report how sorry they felt for them (empathetic concern).
Participants took part in a total of 200 trials.
20 blocks of 10 images (5 sharing/ 5 concern) with a variety of 50 neutral images and 50 painful
Results
- All participants showed an automatic, early differentiation between painful and neutral stimuli, as indexed by a greater early positivity at posterior sites or a greater negativity at anterior sites
- This response is generally interpreted as an automatic attention allocation to important visual stimuli
However....
However...
Later neuronal reactions were negatively correlated with a participants score on the psychopathic trait questionnaire
This suggests that there is some differences in the neural activity of psychopathic traits compared to ppts with non psychopathic traits. What comes first the behavior or the neural activity? We cannot tell but what we can address is that there is differences in their neural reactions to others experiences of pain!
Procedure
EEG
The patient sat at ease
in a small earthed wire cage and was under continuous observation for eye,
scalp, and other movements. The records were taken with the eyes shut, but
it must be admitted that, although the environment remained fairly constant,
not all the psychological factors tending to disturb relaxation could be controlled.
Participants EEG reading were collected when in resting state and when again in 3 minutes of hyperventilation
They wants to see if the brain activity was different in types of psychopaths compared to a control group
Hyperventilation is rapid and deep breathing. It is also called over-breathing, and it may leave you feeling breathless.
Results
48% of 151 psychopathic personalities have abnormal E.E.Gs. 15% of 52 normal controls have abnormal E.E.Gs
Abnormal= Excessively slow waves were the only abnormalities accepted
Results
At the root of all our thoughts, emotions and behaviours is the communication between neurons within our brains.
Brainwaves are produced by synchronised electrical pulses from masses of neurons communicating with each other.