Monday, December 7, 2015

Are Psychopaths Humans? – A Closer Look At Psychopathic Neural Processes

If philosophers and scientists agree on one thing, it is that humans are exceptionally different from other animals. Traits including language and communication, self-awareness, and particularly, our capability to empathize. In the course, Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience (PSYC 382), we learnt that empathy could possibly originate from imitation. Similar to the Singer et al. study that we studied in class, as explained in Science Daily, Decety et al., executed a really similar study except on subjects with diagnosed psychopathy.
The method for these studies used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) on the participants. The subjects used in Decety et al. were inmates of a medium security correctional facility. Participants were shown scenarios depicting pain, for example, a finger stuck between a door or a toe being stubbed on the corner of a table. They were instructed to first imagine the painful experience happening to themselves, and then to another. The inmates were also assessed for any level of psychopathy using the PCL-R tool. As per the fMRIs, subjects that received a high score on the psychopathy assessment tool showed a normal neural response when instructed to imagine themselves in pain. Specifically, the anterior insula, somatosensory cortex, anterior, midcingulate, and right amygdala were activated. However, when the same participants imagined pain to somebody else, these regions failed to activate, and rather the ventral striatum, an area thought to be linked with pleasure was activated. This study shows that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) along with the amygdala are critical in the expression of empathy and well-being of others. Another study that shows the importance of the vmPFC and the amygdala, but in the regulation of mood, was showcased in class when Michael Koenigs spoke.
Koenigs explained that the techniques used in the study, Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex Is Critical for the Regulation of Amygdala Activity in Humans, included the use of event-related fMRI tasks. Each participant was exposed to aversive and neutral pictures in normal comparison subjects and subjects with vmPFC lesions. Results show that both groups rated aversive pictures as more negative than neutral ones. However, vmPFC lesion patients displayed greater right amygdala activation to aversive pictures than the normal comparison subjects. This suggests that lesions to the vmPFC triggers the activation of the amygdala and that these findings are pertinent to exploring the neural models of emotion regulation in psychopathology.
Both, Decety et al. and Motzkin et al., show that the vmPFC and the amygdala are crucial for emotion and affect regulation. Combining the goals, findings, and resources of the two studies can help further the understanding of psychopathy and how the neural functioning of those beings differ from the humans that experience empathy. There are varying levels of how empathy is received cognitively, and how it is expressed behaviorally, but it is chilling to know that there are individuals who are incapable of even thinking about how another may feel. 



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