From: University of Chicago News
By William Harms
April 24, 2013
Prisoners who are psychopaths lack the
basic neurophysiological “hardwiring” that enables them to care
for others, according to a new study by neuroscientists at the
University of Chicago and the University of New Mexico.
“A marked lack of empathy is a
hallmark characteristic of individuals with psychopathy,” said the
lead author of the study, Jean Decety, the Irving B. Harris Professor
in Psychology and Psychiatry at UChicago. Psychopathy affects
approximately 1 percent of the United States general population and
20 percent to 30 percent of the male and female U.S. prison
population. Relative to non-psychopathic criminals, psychopaths are
responsible for a disproportionate amount of repetitive crime and
violence in society.
“This is the first time that neural
processes associated with empathic processing have been directly
examined in individuals with psychopathy, especially in response to
the perception of other people in pain or distress,” he added.
The results of the study, which could
help clinical psychologists design better treatment programs for
psychopaths, are published in the article, “Brain Responses to
Empathy-Eliciting Scenarios Involving Pain in Incarcerated
Individuals with Psychopathy,” which appears online April 24 in the
journal JAMA Psychiatry.
Joining Decety in the study were Laurie
Skelly, a graduate student at UChicago; and Kent Kiehl, professor of
psychology at the University of New Mexico.
For the study, the research team tested
80 prisoners between ages 18 and 50 at a correctional facility. The
men volunteered for the test and were tested for levels of
psychopathy using standard measures.
They were then studied with functional
MRI technology, to determine their responses to a series of scenarios
depicting people being intentionally hurt. They were also tested on
their responses to seeing short videos of facial expressions showing
pain. MORE
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