Reduced Prefrontal Gray Matter Volume and Reduced Autonomic Activity in Antisocial Personality Disorder

Neurocognitive elements of antisocial behavior: Relevance of an orbitofrontal cortex account

“…This provides strong support for a biological vulnerability for violence in that group. In another study Raine and colleagues (Raine, Lencz, Bihrle, LaCasse, & Coletti, 2000) also show an average 11% reduction in frontal cortex gray matter in ASPD.…”

Abnormal Structural Correlates of Response Perseveration in Individuals With Psychopathy

“…Additional demographic, diagnostic, and cognitive characteristics were assessed, including past/current substance dependence using DSM–IV and full-scale IQ (WAIS–Revised; WAIS–R). 15 The two groups did not differ in age, gender, ethnicity, handedness, or substance dependence. 12 This cutoff was chosen to be consistent with our previous research on this sample, 9,12,15 and is similar to the optimal cutoff suggested by taxometric analyses of the PCL-R. 16 Full informed, written consent was obtained from all subjects in accordance with Institutional Review Board procedures at University of Southern California.…”

“…12,15 Psychopathy was assessed using the PCL-R 1 and supplemented by five sources of collateral data 15 to evaluate 20 distinct psychopathic characteristics (i.e., glibness/superficial charm, grandiose sense of self-worth, pathological lying, conning/manipulation, lack of remorse/guilt, shallow affect, callousness/lack of empathy, failure to accept responsibility for own actions, need for stimulation/proneness to boredom, parasitic lifestyle, poor behavioral control, promiscuous sexual behavior, lack of realistic long-term goals, impulsivity, irresponsibility, juvenile delinquency, early behavior problems, revocation of conditional release, many short-term marital relationships, criminal versatility). The collateral data included 1) the Interpersonal Measure of Psychopathy; 2) self-reported crime and violence assessed using an adult extension of the National Youth Survey self-report delinquency measure; 3) criminal history transcripts obtained from the Department of Justice; 4) data derived from, and behavioral observations made during, the Structured Clinical Interview for Axis I DSM-IV Disorders and Axis II Personality Disorders; and 5) independent IM-P ratings made by two different laboratory assistants during separate phases of testing.…”

“…The collateral data included 1) the Interpersonal Measure of Psychopathy; 2) self-reported crime and violence assessed using an adult extension of the National Youth Survey self-report delinquency measure; 3) criminal history transcripts obtained from the Department of Justice; 4) data derived from, and behavioral observations made during, the Structured Clinical Interview for Axis I DSM-IV Disorders and Axis II Personality Disorders; and 5) independent IM-P ratings made by two different laboratory assistants during separate phases of testing. 15 Individuals diagnosed with a DSM-IV disorder (e.g., schizophrenia) other than antisocial personality disorder were excluded. A cutoff of 23 (high) and 15 (low) on the total PCL-R score was used to define psychopathy, resulting in a total of 27 individuals with psychopathy (PCL-R range: 23–40) and 32 comparison subjects (PCL-R range: 5–14).…”

Prenatal Exposure to Maternal Cigarette Smoking and the Adolescent Cerebral Cortex

“…Given the observed effect of PEMCS on the thickness of the OFC and its known role in social behavior (Raine et al, 2000;Adolphs, 2001;Seguin, 2004), we examined the possible relationship between this brain measure and the Caring score in each of the four subgroups (ie exposed and non-exposed male and female adolescents). We observed significant negative correlation between the two measures in exposed females only (left OFC: F(1,76) ¼ 7.5, p ¼ 0.008; right OFC: F(1,77) ¼ 3.8, p ¼ 0.06); Fo1.0 in all other groups); in this group, thickness of the left OFC explained 9% of the variance in Caring.…”