How do people with antisocial personality disorder with or without psychopathic personality disorder activate and regulate emotions? Neurovegetative responses during an autobiographical task

Abstract

People with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD-nonPPD) are described as insensitive to others and as relentlessly pursuing their goals. A severe form of antisociality is observed in psychopathic personality disorder (ASPD-PPD). In the spectrum of emotional reactivity, people with ASPD-nonPPD present more emotional dysregulation, whereas people with ASPD-PPD exhibit a reduced or nonexistent emotional response. To personally engage people with ASPD-nonPPD and ASPD-PPD, we used emotionally charged autobiographical stimuli, specifically their self-defining memories (SDMs). As these participants exhibit high control over voluntary responses, we measured neurophysiological indicators (heart rate variability (HRV) and electrodermal activity (EDA)). In the resting task and the SDM task, people with ASPD-PPD had significantly higher HRV, suggesting higher emotion regulation abilities. Conversely, the EDA of people with ASPD-nonPPD and ASPD-PPD reflects less activation during the SDM task than when resting. We suggest that people with ASPD-PPD are more adaptive to stimuli that provide less emotional activation. Furthermore, the correlation analysis results suggested that the higher people with ASPD-PPD score on Factor 1 of the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R), the less emotional activation they exhibit. This low activation (EDA) associated with good emotion regulation abilities (HRV) is thought to be the signature of psychopathy.