van Dongen Josanne D M
Department of Psychology, Education and Child Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands.
Front Psychol. 2020 Apr 16;11:695. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00695. eCollection 2020.
Empathy is a crucial human ability, because of its importance to prosocial behavior, and for moral development. A deficit in empathic abilities, especially affective empathy, is thought to play an important role in psychopathic personality. Empathic abilities have traditionally been studied within the social and behavioral sciences using behavioral methods, but recent work in neuroscience has begun to elucidate the neural underpinnings of empathic processing in relation to psychopathy. In this review, current knowledge in the social neuroscience of empathy is discussed and a comprehensive view of the neuronal mechanisms that underlie empathy in psychopathic personality is provided. Furthermore, it will be argued that using classification based on overt behavior, we risk failing to identify important mechanisms involved in the psychopathology of psychopathy. In the last decade, there is a growing attention in combining knowledge from (neuro)biological research areas with psychology and psychiatry, to form a new basis for categorizing individuals. Recently, a converging framework has been put forward that applies such approach to antisocial individuals, including psychopathy. In this bio-cognitive approach, it is suggested to use information from different levels, to form latent categories on which individuals are grouped, that may better reflect underlying (neurobiological) dysfunctions. Subsequently, these newly defined latent categories may be more effective in guiding interventions and treatment. In conclusion, in my view, the future understanding of the social brain of psychopaths lies in studying the complex networks in the brain in combination with the use of other levels of information (e.g., genetics and cognition). Based on that, profiles of individuals can be formed that can be used to guide neurophysiological informed personalized treatment interventions that ultimately reduce violent transgressions in individuals with psychopathic traits.
共情是一项至关重要的人类能力，因其对亲社会行为以及道德发展具有重要意义。共情能力的缺陷，尤其是情感共情方面的缺陷，被认为在精神病态人格中起着重要作用。传统上，共情能力是在社会和行为科学领域内通过行为方法进行研究的，但神经科学领域的最新研究已开始阐明与精神病态相关的共情加工的神经基础。在这篇综述中，我们将探讨共情社会神经科学的当前知识，并提供对精神病态人格中共情背后的神经元机制的全面看法。此外，有人认为，基于公开行为进行分类，我们可能会忽略识别精神病态心理病理学中涉及的重要机制。在过去十年中，越来越多的人关注将（神经）生物学研究领域的知识与心理学和精神病学相结合，以形成对个体进行分类的新基础。最近，有人提出了一个融合框架，将这种方法应用于包括精神病态者在内的反社会个体。在这种生物认知方法中，建议使用来自不同层面的信息，形成潜在类别并据此对个体进行分组，这可能更好地反映潜在的（神经生物学）功能障碍。随后，这些新定义的潜在类别在指导干预和治疗方面可能会更有效。总之，在我看来，未来对精神病态者社会大脑的理解在于结合使用其他层面的信息（如遗传学和认知）来研究大脑中的复杂网络。基于此，可以形成个体概况，用于指导基于神经生理学的个性化治疗干预，最终减少具有精神病态特征个体的暴力犯罪行为。
