Attention Network Performance and Psychopathic Symptoms in Early Adolescence: An ERP Study

Abstract

Reaction time (RT) and event-related potential (ERP) measures were used to examine the relationships between psychopathic symptoms and three major attention networks (alerting, orienting, and executive attention) among a community sample of youth. Antisocial Process Screening Device (APSD; Frick and Hare 2001) total and subscale scores were negatively correlated with ERP measures of attentional alerting, indicating that youth with psychopathic symptoms had difficulty using warning cues to prepare for upcoming targets. APSD total scores were not related to performance on measures of orienting or executive attention, although weaker executive attention was found among youth with higher scores on the Impulsivity subscale. These findings support attention-based models of psychopathy and provide evidence of specific deficits in attentional alerting among youth with psychopathic traits. Deficiencies in attentional alerting may be related to noradrenergic functioning and may have cascading effects on higher order cognitive and affective processing.

Relation of frontal N100 to psychopathy-related differences in selective attention

“…No brain or behavior differences were found for Factor 2. This link between Factor 1 scores and reduced interference is consistent with recent findings linking Factor 1 to superior selective attention (e.g., Baskin-Sommers, Zeier, & Newman, 2009; Dvorak-Bertsch, Curtin, Rubinstein, & Newman, 2009; Ishikawa, Raine, Lencz, Bihrle, & Lacasse, 2001; Racer et al, 2011). Moreover, the fact that the interference and N100 difference score effects found in this study are more closely related to the unique variance of Factor 1 versus Factor 2 suggests that they may be relevant for understanding the interpersonal and affective components of psychopathy.…”

Dissociable relations between amygdala subregional networks and psychopathy trait dimensions in conduct‐disordered juvenile offenders

“…However, given the bidirectional flow of information between the BLA and frontoparietal structures [Barbas et al, 2003; Ghashghaei and Barbas, 2002; Sah et al, 2003; Selemon and Goldmanrakic, 1988], our finding may also reflect exaggerated bottom‐up signaling of motivational salience, potentially at the expense of negative emotional information. This fits well with the neurocognitive profile of behavioral psychopathic traits, which includes excessive deployment of cognitive resources towards positive and motivationally salient information [Dolan and Anderson, 2002; Morgan and Lilienfeld, 2000; Racer et al, 2011; Sadeh and Verona, 2008; Sellbom and Verona, 2007], and is consistent with the role of BLA in processing motivational salience [Dwyer and Killcross, 2006; Tye and Janak, 2007]. Overall, our finding thus seems to suggest that individuals with behavioral psychopathic traits may somewhat lack the biological potential to override maladaptive response inclinations, which speculatively could hinder socially appropriate and personally beneficial actions.…”

“…One may for instance speculate that the hyperconnectivity we document could reflect top‐down overregulation of BLA neurons by the frontoparietal control system, which might ostensibly deprive this system of negative affective salience (i.e., threat/punishment cues) and thus hinder optimum control of actions. Excessive frontoparietal control of BLA neurons and diminished BLA responding have been tentatively theorized in relation to impulsive and antisocial psychopathic traits [Blair, 2010; Blair, 2013b; Blair and Mitchell, 2009; Glenn et al, 2009; Larson et al, 2013; Moul et al, 2012], and subsumed to underpin the executive dysfunction and behavioral disinhibition that lie at the heart of these traits [Dolan and Anderson, 2002; Morgan and Lilienfeld, 2000; Racer et al, 2011; Sadeh and Verona, 2008; Sellbom and Verona, 2007; Zeier et al, 2012]. However, given the bidirectional flow of information between the BLA and frontoparietal structures [Barbas et al, 2003; Ghashghaei and Barbas, 2002; Sah et al, 2003; Selemon and Goldmanrakic, 1988], our finding may also reflect exaggerated bottom‐up signaling of motivational salience, potentially at the expense of negative emotional information.…”

From neuro-pigments to neural efficiency: The relationship between retinal carotenoids and behavioral and neuroelectric indices of cognitive control in childhood

“…We examined children’s cognitive performance (response accuracy and reaction time) during a modified flanker task as well as the peak amplitudes and latencies of the P3 elicited during the task. Abundant prior literature has used the flanker task to elicit P3 in many research contexts including investigations into conflict monitoring and inhibition (Clayson & Larson 2011a; Clayson & Larson 2011b; Purmann et al 2011; Groom & Cragg 2015), health-related behaviors (Hillman et al, 2014; Charles H. Hillman, Snook, & Jerome, 2003; Charles H Hillman, Buck, Themanson, Pontifex, & Castelli, 2009; Kamijo, Nishihara, Higashiura, & Kuroiwa, 2007; Pontifex & Hillman, 2007), child development (Brydges et al 2014; Rueda et al 2005; Ridderinkhof & van der Molen 1995; Ruberry et al 2016), cognitive aging (Hillman, Belopolsky, Snook, Kramer, & McAuley, 2004; Hsieh, Liang, & Tsai, 2012; Korsch, Frühholz, & Herrmann, 2016; Reuter, Voelcker-Rehage, Vieluf, Parianen Lesemann, & Godde, 2016), and clinical diagnoses (Johnstone & Galletta 2013; Johnstone et al 2009; Jonkman et al 1999; Liu et al 2011; Bartholow et al 2003; Rusnakova et al 2011; Racer et al 2011). We assessed lutein levels via a measure of Macular Pigment Optical Density (MPOD) using customized hetero-flicker photometry (cHFP).…”