Unemotional on all counts: Evidence of reduced affective responses in individuals with high callous-unemotional traits across emotion systems and valences

Abstract

The current study aimed to identify atypical neurophysiological activity associated with deficient affective processing in individuals with high callous-unemotional traits (CU). Fifty-six participants (M age = 20.52; 46% male) divided in two groups, differentiated on levels of CU traits, were invited to participate in the experimental phase of the study. Medial prefrontal cortex activity, measured with functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy, and facial electro-myography activity were recorded during videos depicting violent, comedy and neutral scenes. Individuals high on CU traits showed similar medial prefrontal cortex oxygenated hemoglobin (HbO²) activity to positive and negative films, while the pre-frontal cortical responses of low CU individuals were more pronounced to positive than negative materials. High CU participants also showed reduced facial electromyography at the corrugator muscle in response to violent films, which was not differentiated from their responses to comedy films. These findings suggest that individuals high on CU traits show reduced but not absent (i.e., flat) affect to emotional material. Deficits in processing positive and negative valent material, measured with different neuro-physiological modalities, might be essential to understand CU traits.

Keywords:

• Callous-unemotional traits
• Reduced affective responses
• Functional-near infrared resonance imaging
• Electromyography
• Medial prefrontal cortex

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a University of Cyprus Internal Research Grant.