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Brain Structural Correlates of Emotion Recognition in Psychopaths

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...

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Autores principales: Pera-Guardiola, Vanessa, Contreras-Rodríguez, Oren, Batalla, Iolanda, Kosson, David, Menchón, José M, Pifarré, Josep, Bosque, Javier, Cardoner, Narcís, Soriano-Mas, Carles
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4866737/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27175777
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0149807
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author Pera-Guardiola, Vanessa
Contreras-Rodríguez, Oren
Batalla, Iolanda
Kosson, David
Menchón, José M
Pifarré, Josep
Bosque, Javier
Cardoner, Narcís
Soriano-Mas, Carles
author_facet Pera-Guardiola, Vanessa
Contreras-Rodríguez, Oren
Batalla, Iolanda
Kosson, David
Menchón, José M
Pifarré, Josep
Bosque, Javier
Cardoner, Narcís
Soriano-Mas, Carles
author_sort Pera-Guardiola, Vanessa
collection PubMed
description 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.
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spelling pubmed-48667372016-05-18 Brain Structural Correlates of Emotion Recognition in Psychopaths Pera-Guardiola, Vanessa Contreras-Rodríguez, Oren Batalla, Iolanda Kosson, David Menchón, José M Pifarré, Josep Bosque, Javier Cardoner, Narcís Soriano-Mas, Carles PLoS One Research Article 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. Public Library of Science 2016-05-13 /pmc/articles/PMC4866737/ /pubmed/27175777 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0149807 Text en © 2016 Pera-Guardiola et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Pera-Guardiola, Vanessa
Contreras-Rodríguez, Oren
Batalla, Iolanda
Kosson, David
Menchón, José M
Pifarré, Josep
Bosque, Javier
Cardoner, Narcís
Soriano-Mas, Carles
Brain Structural Correlates of Emotion Recognition in Psychopaths
title Brain Structural Correlates of Emotion Recognition in Psychopaths
title_full Brain Structural Correlates of Emotion Recognition in Psychopaths
title_fullStr Brain Structural Correlates of Emotion Recognition in Psychopaths
title_full_unstemmed Brain Structural Correlates of Emotion Recognition in Psychopaths
title_short Brain Structural Correlates of Emotion Recognition in Psychopaths
title_sort brain structural correlates of emotion recognition in psychopaths
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4866737/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27175777
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0149807
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