Psychopathy is associated with fear-specific reductions in neural activity during affective perspective-taking
Philip Deming,
Monika Dargis,
Brian W. Haas,
Michael Brook,
Jean Decety,
Carla Harenski,
Kent A. Kiehl,
Michael Koenigs,
David S. Kosson
Affiliations
Philip Deming
Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1202 West Johnson St., Madison, WI, United States; Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 6001 Research Park Blvd., Madison, Wisconsin, United States; Corresponding author.
Monika Dargis
Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1202 West Johnson St., Madison, WI, United States; Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 6001 Research Park Blvd., Madison, Wisconsin, United States
Brian W. Haas
Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, 125 Baldwin St., Athens, GA, United States; Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Graduate Program, University of Georgia, S150 Paul D. Coverdell Center, Athens, GA, United States
Michael Brook
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, 420 E Superior St., Chicago, Illinois, United States
Jean Decety
Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, 5848 South University Ave., Chicago, Illinois, United States
Carla Harenski
The Mind Research Network and Lovelace Biomedical, 1101 Yale Blvd. NE, Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States; Department of Psychology, University of New Mexico, 1 University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States
Kent A. Kiehl
The Mind Research Network and Lovelace Biomedical, 1101 Yale Blvd. NE, Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States; Department of Psychology, University of New Mexico, 1 University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States
Michael Koenigs
Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 6001 Research Park Blvd., Madison, Wisconsin, United States
David S. Kosson
Department of Psychology, Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, North Chicago, IL, United States; Corresponding author.
Psychopathic individuals are notorious for their callous disregard for others’ emotions. Prior research has linked psychopathy to deficits in affective mechanisms underlying empathy (e.g., affective sharing), yet research relating psychopathy to cognitive mechanisms underlying empathy (e.g., affective perspective-taking and Theory of Mind) requires further clarification. To elucidate the neurobiology of cognitive mechanisms of empathy in psychopathy, we administered an fMRI task and tested for global as well as emotion-specific deficits in affective perspective-taking. Adult male incarcerated offenders (N = 94) viewed images of two people interacting, with one individual's face obscured by a shape. Participants were cued to either identify the emotion of the obscured individual or identify the shape from one of two emotion or shape choices presented on each trial. Target emotions included anger, fear, happiness, sadness, and neutral. Contrary to predictions, psychopathy was unrelated to neural activity in the Affective Perspective-taking > Shape contrast. In line with predictions, psychopathy was negatively related to task accuracy during affective perspective-taking for fear, happiness, and sadness. Psychopathy was related to reduced hemodynamic activity exclusively during fear perspective-taking in several areas: left anterior insula extending into posterior orbitofrontal cortex, right precuneus, left superior parietal lobule, and left superior occipital cortex. Although much prior research has emphasized psychopathy-related abnormalities in affective mechanisms mediating empathy, current results add to growing evidence of psychopathy-related abnormalities in a cognitive mechanism related to empathy. These findings highlight brain regions that are hypoactive in psychopathy when explicitly processing another's fear.
