Alterations of Brain Functional Architecture Associated with Psychopathic Traits in Male Adolescents with Conduct Disorder

Abstract

Psychopathic traits of conduct disorder (CD) have a core callous-unemotional (CU) component and an impulsive-antisocial component. Previous task-driven fMRI studies have suggested that psychopathic traits are associated with dysfunction of several brain areas involved in different cognitive functions (e.g., empathy, reward, and response inhibition etc.), but the relationship between psychopathic traits and intrinsic brain functional architecture has not yet been explored in CD. Using a holistic brain-wide functional connectivity analysis, this study delineated the alterations in brain functional networks in patients with conduct disorder. Compared with matched healthy controls, we found decreased anti-synchronization between the fronto-parietal network (FPN) and default mode network (DMN), and increased intra-network synchronization within the frontothalamic–basal ganglia, right frontoparietal, and temporal/limbic/visual networks in CD patients. Correlation analysis showed that the weakened FPN-DMN interaction was associated with CU traits, while the heightened intra-network functional connectivity was related to impulsivity traits in CD patients. Our findings suggest that decoupling of cognitive control (FPN) with social understanding of others (DMN) is associated with the CU traits, and hyper-functions of the reward and motor inhibition systems elevate impulsiveness in CD.

Aggression Subtypes Relate to Distinct Resting State Functional Connectivity in Disruptive Children and Adolescents

“…Diminished SN rsFC with left hemispheric clusters extending from the OFC to the frontal pole in cases compared to controls were only demonstrated when considering ADHD scores. In line with previous rs-fMRI studies (Broulidakis et al, 2016;Pu et al, 2017), cases exhibited an ADHD scores-related increase in rsFC and further corroborates the recent finding of overlapping deficit functioning in ADHD and disruptive behavior disorders (Puiu et al, 2018).…”

“…The DMN seed-based rsFC patterns reported here might suggest uncaring and callousness dimension-specific alterations in (affective) selfreferential processes (Andrews-Hanna et al, 2010). Altered rsFC in the DMN was reported in children and adolescents with CU-related traits (Cohn et al, 2015;Pu et al, 2017) and in adult psychopathy (Pujol et al, 2012;Tang, Jiang, Liao, Wang, & Luo, 2013;Tang et al, 2016). The overlapping SN rsFC with a cluster in precuneal and cingulate areas for uncaring and unemotional behavior scores may reflect their behavioral correlation (Kimonis et al, 2008).…”

“…Other recent studies have also reported reduced DMN rsFC in male adolescents with CD compared to healthy controls (Zhou et al, 2016). Higher ADHD scores, however, related to increased rsFC density and alterations (Lu, Zhou, Zhang, et al, 2017;Pu et al, 2017;Uytun et al, 2016) in DMN areas. Critically, these rs-fMRI studies were mostly limited to male adolescents with CD, and further distinct manifestations of aggression including reactive and proactive aggression (RA/PA) (Dodge & Coie, 1987) largely neglected.…”

“…In line with rsFC studies in adolescents (Aghajani et al, 2016(Aghajani et al, , 2017Cohn et al, 2015) and adults (Philippi et al, 2015;Tang et al, 2016), cases exhibited increases in rsFC with higher CU traits. Callousness and uncaring behavior were related to rsFC patterns including clusters in the precentral gyrus, which has been previously linked to altered rsFC in adolescents with CU-related traits (Cohn et al, 2015;Pu et al, 2017) and psychopathic adults (Espinoza et al, 2018;Korponay et al, 2017;Philippi et al, 2015;Tang et al, 2016). A recent meta-analytic review found that the right anterior insula was implicated in the evaluation of feelings and the left anterior insula in the expression of anger (Lindquist, Wager, Kober, Bliss-Moreau, & Barrett, 2012).…”

“…To date, only few rsFC studies have evaluated CU subdimensions in children and adolescents. While the anticorrelation between the DMN and fronto-parietal network decreased with higher CU-related traits (Pu et al, 2017), anterior DMN rsFC increased with higher scores on the CU dimension (Cohn et al, 2015), and DMN rs-fMRI parameters increased with higher CU-related total scores and interpersonal/affective traits (Thijssen & Kiehl, 2017). In male youths with CD, interpersonal traits correlated with distinct amygdala subregional rsFC with clusters including SN and DMN regions (Aghajani et al, 2016).…”