White Matter Deficits in Psychopathic Offenders and Correlation with Factor Structure

Abstract

Psychopathic offenders show a persistent pattern of emotional unresponsivity to the often horrendous crimes they perpetrate. Recent studies have related psychopathy to alterations in white matter. Therefore, diffusion tensor imaging followed by tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS) analysis in 11 psychopathic offenders matched to 11 healthy controls was completed. Fractional anisotropy was calculated within each voxel and comparisons were made between groups using a permutation test. Any clusters of white matter voxels different between groups were submitted to probabilistic tractography. Significant differences in fractional anisotropy were found between psychopathic offenders and healthy controls in three main white matter clusters. These three clusters represented two major networks: an amygdalo-prefrontal network, and a striato-thalamo-frontal network. The interpersonal/affective component of the PCL-R correlated with white matter deficits in the orbitofrontal cortex and frontal pole whereas the antisocial component correlated with deficits in the striato-thalamo-frontal network. In addition to replicating earlier work concerning disruption of an amygdala-prefrontal network, we show for the first time that white matter integrity in a striato-thalamo-frontal network is disrupted in psychopathic offenders. The novelty of our findings lies in the two dissociable white matter networks that map directly onto the two major factors of psychopathy.

Psychopathic traits in adolescents are associated with higher structural connectivity

“…However, consistent with other recent studies (Hoppenbrouwers et al, 2013;Zhang et al, 2014;Hoppenbrouwers et al, 2014), we showed more widespread structural connectivity differences related to psychopathy and its constituting dimensions. These findings add to emerging evidence that the neurobiological mechanisms underlying psychopathy are much more widespread than some models of psychopathy (e.g., Blair, 2013) have suggested.…”

“…These findings add to emerging evidence that the neurobiological mechanisms underlying psychopathy are much more widespread than some models of psychopathy (e.g., Blair, 2013) have suggested. Whereas most studies in adults report negative associations between psychopathy and structural connectivity (Sundram et al, 2012;Hoppenbrouwers et al, 2013), some studies in juveniles have reported preserved (Finger et al, 2012) or even increased (Passamonti et al, 2012;Sarkar et al, 2013;Zhang et al, 2014) structural connectivity in groups at risk of psychopathic development and positive correlations between continuous measures of psychopathic traits and FA (Sarkar et al, 2013;Zhang et al, 2014). Consistent with the literature, we also found positive associations between psychopathic traits and structural connectivity in the UF (Sarkar et al, 2013) and corpus callosum (Zhang et al, 2014), but additionally we showed that such associations exist in numerous other white matter tracts throughout the brain.…”

“…In adults, only one study in a small sample of psychopathic offenders (n=11) employed a dimensional approach based on the two-factor model of psychopathy, showing negative associations between the interpersonal-affective dimension and FA in an amygdala-prefrontal network, and between the irresponsible-antisocial dimension and FA in a striatal network (Hoppenbrouwers et al, 2013). In juveniles, two studies have assessed the association between psychopathic traits and structural connectivity.…”

A Neural Perspective of Immoral Behavior and Psychopathy

“…Moderating effects of psychopathic behaviors (as measured by PCL-R factors) have been observed in neuroimaging studies of psychopathic individuals as well. Factor 1 has been associated with integrity of white matter between the amygdala and prefrontal regions that include the VMPFC, while Factor 2 has been associated with white-matter projections connecting dopaminergic nuclei to these same prefrontal regions (Hoppenbrouwers et al 2013), thereby corroborating the anatomical evidence from lesion studies for the involvement of these regions in psychopathy and moral judgment.…”

Violent criminality and self-compassion

“…Considering the evidence linking violent criminality to abnormalities in specific structures in the brain, researchers' investigations have found indications that the neurological connections among these regions are, likewise, abnormal (Decety et al, 2013;Hoppenbrouwers et al, 2013). For example, Hoppenbrouwers et al (2013) conducted a study using diffusion tensor imaging and found reductions in white matter tracts connecting the striatum to the amygdala, the amygdala to the prefrontal cortex, and the striatum to the prefrontal cortex. Evidence, also, suggests that dysfunctional connectivity present in violent criminals plays a role in empathy.…”