White matter correlates of psychopathic traits in a female community sample

Abstract

Psychopathy comprises interpersonal, affective, lifestyle and antisocial facets that vary dimensionally in the population and are associated with criminal offending and adverse psychosocial outcomes. Evidence associating these facets with white matter microstructure of the uncinate fasciculus and the cingulum tracts is inconsistent and derives principally from studies of male offenders. In a sample of 99 young women presenting a range of scores on the Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version, we used Diffusion Tensor Imaging, tractography and Tract-Based Spatial Statistics to investigate microstructure across the brain and of the uncinate fasciculus and cingulum. Right uncinate fasciculus microstructure was negatively associated with the interpersonal facet, while cingulum integrity was not associated with any facet of psychopathy. Whole-brain analyses revealed that both affective and lifestyle facets were negatively correlated with white matter microstructure adjacent to the fusiform gyrus, and the interpersonal facet correlated negatively with the integrity of the fornix. Findings survived adjustment for the other facet scores, and age, verbal and performance IQ. A similar negative association between the interpersonal facet and uncinate fasciculus integrity was previously observed in male offenders. Thus, previous evidence showing that psychopathic traits are associated with functional and structural abnormalities within limbic networks may also apply to females.

A Systematic Literature Review of Neuroimaging of Psychopathic Traits

“…These findings were in general attributed to the interpersonalaffective dimensions (85,89,124), but also to a lesser extent to lifestyle-antisocial dimensions (85). Moreover, increased radial diffusivity (RD) in the uncinate fasciculus correlated with the interpersonal dimension of psychopathy (16).…”

“…The integrity of white matter structures appeared to play a pivotal role in psychopathy. Several studies showed reduced fractional anisotropy (FA) in the uncinate fasciculus on the right side (73,87,89) and bilaterally (16,85,88). These findings were in general attributed to the interpersonalaffective dimensions (85,89,124), but also to a lesser extent to lifestyle-antisocial dimensions (85).…”

“…Furthermore, conduct disorder (CD) is often present amongst the majority of offenders with clinical psychopathy before the age of fifteen, and antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) after the age of eighteen (15). The PCL-R superordinate interpersonal-affective factor of psychopathy is not a prerequisite for CD and ASPD, but they are, however, often comorbid (16). Moreover, psychopaths having successfully avoided criminal conviction are sometimes referred to as successful psychopaths (17).…”

Amygdala-orbitofrontal structural and functional connectivity in females with anxiety disorders, with and without a history of conduct disorder

“…Women were recruited from a longitudinal study of adolescents who consulted for substance misuse at a specialized clinic in Stockholm 73 – 76 . Thirty-nine ex-clients had been assessed at baseline, and 6, 12, 60 and 78 months later.…”

“…Due to the shape and location of the UF (which intersects both with the inferior fronto-occipital tract in the OFC and the inferior longitudinal tract in the temporal pole), voxelwise methods that rely on inter-subject normalization, such as Tract-Based Spatial Statistics 87 used in our previous study, contrasting whole-brain white matter integrity between CD and healthy women 74 , are limited in their abilities to properly delineate the UF. Instead, whole-brain tractography and manual, virtual dissection was employed 76 . Preprocessed diffusion-weighted data were tensor-fitted in Diffusion Toolkit and whole-brain tractography performed using the interpolated streamline algorithm, an angle threshold of 34° and a standard FA interval of 0.2–1.…”