Psychopathic traits linked to alterations in neural activity during personality judgments of self and others.

Psychopathic individuals are notorious for their grandiose sense of self-worth and disregard for the welfare of others. One potential psychological mechanism underlying these traits is the relative consideration of "self" versus "others". Here we used task-based functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to identify neural responses during personality trait judgments about oneself and a familiar other in a sample of adult male incarcerated offenders ( = 57).

Psychopathic traits are associated with reduced fixations to the eye region of fearful faces.

Impairments in processing fearful faces have been documented in both children and adults with psychopathic traits, suggesting a potential mechanism by which psychopathic individuals develop callous and manipulative interpersonal and affective traits. Recently, research has demonstrated that psychopathic traits are associated with reduced fixations to the eye regions of faces in samples of children and community-dwelling adults, however this relationship has not yet been established in an offender sample with high levels of psychopathy. In the current study, we employed eye-tracking with paradigms involving the identification and passive viewing of facial expressions of emotion, respectively, in a sample of adult male criminal offenders (n = 108) to elucidate the relationship between visual processing of fearful facial expressions and interpersonal and affective psychopathic traits.

Reversal learning deficits in criminal offenders: Effects of psychopathy, substance use, and childhood maltreatment history.

Deficits in reinforcement learning are presumed to underlie the impulsive and incorrigible behavior exhibited by psychopathic criminals. However, previous studies documenting reversal learning impairments in psychopathic individuals have not investigated this relationship across a continuous range of psychopathy severity, nor have they examined how reversal learning impairments relate to different psychopathic traits, such as the interpersonal-affective and lifestyle-antisocial dimensions. Furthermore, previous studies have not considered the role that childhood maltreatment and substance use may have in this specific cognitive deficit.

Emotion recognition deficits associated with ventromedial prefrontal cortex lesions are improved by gaze manipulation.

Facial emotion recognition is a critical aspect of human communication. Since abnormalities in facial emotion recognition are associated with social and affective impairment in a variety of psychiatric and neurological conditions, identifying the neural substrates and psychological processes underlying facial emotion recognition will help advance basic and translational research on social-affective function. Ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) has recently been implicated in deploying visual attention to the eyes of emotional faces, although there is mixed evidence regarding the importance of this brain region for recognition accuracy.

Ventromedial prefrontal cortex damage alters relative risk tolerance for prospective gains and losses.

One paradigmatic example of "irrational" bias in human economic decision-making-known as the "reflection effect"-is a tendency to prefer sure amounts over risky gambles in situations involving potential gain, but to prefer risky gambles over sure amounts in situations involving potential loss. To date, there is no causal evidence regarding the neural basis of the reflection effect. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) is believed to play a critical role in mediating value-based decision-making.

Interpersonal traits of psychopathy linked to reduced integrity of the uncinate fasciculus.

Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by callous lack of empathy, impulsive antisocial behavior, and criminal recidivism. Here, we performed the largest diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) study of incarcerated criminal offenders to date (N = 147) to determine whether psychopathy severity is linked to the microstructural integrity of major white matter tracts in the brain. Consistent with the results of previous studies in smaller samples, we found that psychopathy was associated with reduced fractional anisotropy in the right uncinate fasciculus (UF; the major white matter tract connecting ventral frontal and anterior temporal cortices).

Prefrontal-Amygdala Dysregulation to Threat in Pediatric Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.

Functional abnormalities in fear circuitry are likely to underlie the pathophysiology of pediatric posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but the few studies to date have yielded conflicting findings. Furthermore, network level functional connectivity and age-related disruptions in fear circuitry have not been thoroughly explored. In a cross-sectional design, 24 healthy and 24 medication-free youth with severe PTSD completed an event-related emotion-processing task during functional MRI.

Ventromedial prefrontal cortex lesions alter neural and physiological correlates of anticipation.

Uncertainty is a ubiquitous feature of our daily lives. Although previous studies have identified a number of neural and peripheral physiological changes associated with uncertainty, there are limited data on the causal mechanisms underlying these responses in humans. In this study, we address this empirical gap through a novel application of fMRI in neurosurgical patients with focal, bilateral ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) damage.

Ventromedial prefrontal cortex mediates visual attention during facial emotion recognition.

The ventromedial prefrontal cortex is known to play a crucial role in regulating human social and emotional behaviour, yet the precise mechanisms by which it subserves this broad function remain unclear. Whereas previous neuropsychological studies have largely focused on the role of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex in higher-order deliberative processes related to valuation and decision-making, here we test whether ventromedial prefrontal cortex may also be critical for more basic aspects of orienting attention to socially and emotionally meaningful stimuli. Using eye tracking during a test of facial emotion recognition in a sample of lesion patients, we show that bilateral ventromedial prefrontal cortex damage impairs visual attention to the eye regions of faces, particularly for fearful faces.

Ventromedial prefrontal cortex is critical for the regulation of amygdala activity in humans.

Background: Dysfunction in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) is believed to play a pivotal role in the pathogenesis of mood and anxiety disorders. Leading neurocircuitry models of these disorders propose that hypoactivity in the vmPFC engenders disinhibited activity of the amygdala and, consequently, pathologically elevated levels of negative affect. This model predicts that a selective loss or diminution of function of the vmPFC would result in heightened activity of the amygdala.

Inherent emotional quality of human speech sounds.

During much of the past century, it was widely believed that phonemes-the human speech sounds that constitute words-have no inherent semantic meaning, and that the relationship between a combination of phonemes (a word) and its referent is simply arbitrary. Although recent work has challenged this picture by revealing psychological associations between certain phonemes and particular semantic contents, the precise mechanisms underlying these associations have not been fully elucidated. Here we provide novel evidence that certain phonemes have an inherent, non-arbitrary emotional quality.

Reduced susceptibility to the attentional blink in psychopathic offenders: implications for the attention bottleneck hypothesis.

Objective: Newman and Baskin-Sommers (in press) have proposed that psychopathy reflects an attention bottleneck that interferes with processing contextual information, including the timely processing of affective and inhibitory cues that initiate self-regulation. Despite a wealth of evidence that attention moderates the affective, inhibitory, and self-regulation deficits of psychopathic offenders, to date there is little or no evidence that psychopathic offenders perform abnormally on a canonical measure of selective attention. In this study, we address this gap in the literature and clarify the attention-related abnormality in psychopathy.

Estradiol-induced follicular atresia in rhesus monkeys is not prevented by exogenous gonadotropins.

Estradiol-17β (E) induces atresia of the dominant preovulatory follicle (DF) when administered on day 6 of the menstrual cycle. The present study was designed to determine whether the atretogenic effect of E could be averted by the administration of exogenous gonadotropins, in an attempt to determine whether E-induced atresia in primates is due to a direct action at the ovarian level or is mediated via pituitary secretion. After identification of the DF during laparoscopy, cyclic monkeys received Silastic capsules containing E placed s.

Atresia of the dominant ovarian follicle in rhesus monkeys is detected within 24 hours of estradiol treatment.

Following treatment with estradiol-17β (E) on day 6 of the menstrual cycle, degenerative alterations in the microenvironment of the dominant follicle (DF) (follicular fluid [FF], granulosa cells [GC], and oocyte) are readily apparent on day 10, or 96 h after E administration. The present study was designed to determine how early such changes could be detected and which indices of atresia were observed first. The DF was identified during laparoscopy on day 5 or 6 of the cycle, and four capsules containing crystalline E were inserted s.

Induction of atresia of the dominant follicle in rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) by the local application of estradiol-17β.

Estradiol-17β (E), administered systemically to rhesus monkeys during the follicular phase of the menstrual cycle, induces atretic changes in the microenvironment of the dominant follicle (DF), which results in its demise. It has been proposed that this effect of E represents a direct action at the ovarian level. The present study was designed to test this hypothesis, using local treatment with E.

Menstrual cycles in rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) are unaffected by a single dose of the anesthetics ketamine and xylazine administered during the midfollicular phase at laparoscopy.

To identify an anesthetic regimen that produces more complete relaxation and analgesia than ketamine hydrochloride (Ketaset®) alone, a combination of ketamine (15 mg/kg body weight) and the hypnotic xylazine (Rompun®, 0.33 mg/kg) was evaluated. Since the desired experimental application required that the anesthetic not interfere with normal hormonal events during the menstrual cycle, this combination administered on day 6 of the cycle was tested to determine whether hormonal surges, incidence of ovulation, or cycle length would be altered relative to the use of ketamine alone.

Atretogenic action of estrogen in rhesus monkeys: Effects of repeated treatment.

The effects of 17β-estradiol (E), administered in Silastic capsules for 24 hours at intervals of 10 or 14 days, on follicular development and menstrual cycle characteristics were studied in 13 rhesus monkeys. In seven monkeys receiving E at l0-day intervals for 50 treatment periods, new follicles frequently developed between treatments but usually regressed. In seven instances, the follicles persisted longer than expected but were steroidogenically suppressed and regressed spontaneously.

Temporal and endocrine sequelae of aspirating follicular contents in rhesus monkeys.

Aspiration of ovarian follicular contents in humans is a well-established procedure used to obtain oocytes for fertilization in vitro (IVF). However, the effects of aspiration on the menstrual cycle and resulting luteal function have been incompletely characterized. The present study was designed to investigate alterations in the temporal and endocrine characteristics of menstrual cycles following aspiration of contents of the dominant preovulatory follicle (DF) on day 10 of the cycle in normal rhesus monkeys.

Excessive ovarian follicular development in pregnant pigtailed macaques (Macaca nemestrina).

To evaluate the status and possible control of ovarian follicular development during pregnancy, circulating levels of estrone (E), estradiol-17β (E), and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) were measured throughout gestation in both intact and ovariectomized pregnant pigtailed monkeys (Macaca nemestrina). From an additional group of pregnant monkeys, ovaries were obtained at late gestation (on day 150 or 159 of pregnancy) for histological studies. Circulating concentrations of E and E increased on day 13 and remained elevated for about 10 days; they then declined and reached low levels on day 32 of gestation.