Evidence of Deviant Emotional Processing in Psychopathy: A fMRI Case Study

Abstract

In this case–report we describe a prototypical criminal psychopath by clinical characteristics and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). To study emotional disability in psychopathy we compared fMRI-BOLD (blood oxygen level dependent) responses to healthy controls. In a block-design subjects were exposed to drawings of facial expressions alternated with scrambled drawings. Exposure to facial expressions activated brain regions of older origin in the psychopath, whereas all activated regions in controls were neocortical. Our findings support the notion that the processing of emotional stimuli in psychopathy is atypical.

Keywords:

• brain
• emotion
• facial expression
• fMRI
• psychopathy
• violence