Wolf Richard C, Pujara Maia S, Motzkin Julian C, Newman Joseph P, Kiehl Kent A, Decety Jean, Kosson David S, Koenigs Michael
Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Wisconsin.
Neuroscience Training Program, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Wisconsin.
Hum Brain Mapp. 2015 Oct;36(10):4202-9. doi: 10.1002/hbm.22911. Epub 2015 Jul 28.
Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by callous lack of empathy, impulsive antisocial behavior, and criminal recidivism. Here, we performed the largest diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) study of incarcerated criminal offenders to date (N = 147) to determine whether psychopathy severity is linked to the microstructural integrity of major white matter tracts in the brain. Consistent with the results of previous studies in smaller samples, we found that psychopathy was associated with reduced fractional anisotropy in the right uncinate fasciculus (UF; the major white matter tract connecting ventral frontal and anterior temporal cortices). We found no such association in the left UF or in adjacent frontal or temporal white matter tracts. Moreover, the right UF finding was specifically related to the interpersonal features of psychopathy (glib superficial charm, grandiose sense of self-worth, pathological lying, manipulativeness), rather than the affective, antisocial, or lifestyle features. These results indicate a neural marker for this key dimension of psychopathic symptomatology.
精神变态是一种人格障碍，其特征是无情地缺乏同理心、冲动的反社会行为和犯罪累犯。在此，我们开展了迄今为止规模最大的针对被监禁罪犯的扩散张量成像（DTI）研究（N = 147），以确定精神变态的严重程度是否与大脑主要白质束的微观结构完整性有关。与之前较小样本的研究结果一致，我们发现精神变态与右侧钩束（UF；连接腹侧额叶和颞叶前部皮质的主要白质束）的各向异性分数降低有关。在左侧钩束或相邻的额叶或颞叶白质束中，我们未发现此类关联。此外，右侧钩束的这一发现与精神变态的人际特征（油嘴滑舌的表面魅力、夸大的自我价值感、病态说谎、操纵性）具体相关，而非情感、反社会或生活方式特征。这些结果表明了这种精神变态症状关键维度的一种神经标志物。
