Brain Structural Correlates of Emotion Recognition in Psychopaths
Pera-Guardiola, Vanessa (Universitat de Lleida. Departament de Medicina)
Contreras Rodríguez, Oren (Institut d'Investigació Biomèdica de Bellvitge)
Batalla, Iolanda (GSS, Hospital Santa Maria, Psychiatry Department, Lleida, Spain)
Kosson, David (Department of Psychology, Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, North Chicago, United States of America)
Menchón Magriñá, José Manuel (Universitat de Barcelona. Departament de Ciències Clíniques)
Pifarré, Josep (GSS, Hospital Santa Maria, Psychiatry Department, Lleida, Spain)
Bosque, Javier (Medical Department of Ponent Penitentiary Center, Lleida, Spain)
Cardoner, N. (Narcís) (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Departament de Psiquiatria i de Medicina Legal)
Soriano-Mas, Carles (Institut d'Investigació Biomèdica de Bellvitge)

Data:	2016
Resum:	Individuals with psychopathy present deficits in the recognition of facial emotional expressions. However, the nature and extent of these alterations are not fully understood. Furthermore, available data on the functional neural correlates of emotional face recognition deficits in adult psychopaths have provided mixed results. In this context, emotional face morphing tasks may be suitable for clarifying mild and emotion-specific impairments in psychopaths. Likewise, studies exploring corresponding anatomical correlates may be useful for disentangling available neurofunctional evidence based on the alleged neurodevelopmental roots of psychopathic traits. We used Voxel-Based Morphometry and a morphed emotional face expression recognition task to evaluate the relationship between regional gray matter (GM) volumes and facial emotion recognition deficits in male psychopaths. In comparison to male healthy controls, psychopaths showed deficits in the recognition of sad, happy and fear emotional expressions. In subsequent brain imaging analyses psychopaths with better recognition of facial emotional expressions showed higher volume in the prefrontal cortex (orbitofrontal, inferior frontal and dorsomedial prefrontal cortices), somatosensory cortex, anterior insula, cingulate cortex and the posterior lobe of the cerebellum. Amygdala and temporal lobe volumes contributed to better emotional face recognition in controls only. These findings provide evidence suggesting that variability in brain morphometry plays a role in accounting for psychopaths' impaired ability to recognize emotional face expressions, and may have implications for comprehensively characterizing the empathy and social cognition dysfunctions typically observed in this population of subjects.
Ajuts:	Ministerio de Sanidad y Consumo CB06/03/0034 Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación CP10/00604 Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad CD14/00246 Instituto de Salud Carlos III PI05/0884 Instituto de Salud Carlos III PI01/1006 Instituto de Salud Carlos III CIBER-CB06/03/0034
Drets:	Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original.
Llengua:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió publicada
Publicat a:	PloS one, Vol. 11 (may 2016) , ISSN 1932-6203

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0149807
PMID: 27175777

17 p, 2.2 MB

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