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Affective and interpersonal psychopathic traits associated with reduced corpus callosum volume among male inmates – RETRACTED

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 October 2018

Nathaniel E. Anderson Open the ORCID record for Nathaniel E. Anderson [Opens in a new window] ,
J. Michael Maurer ,
Prashanth Nyalakanti ,
Keith A. Harenski ,
Carla L. Harenski ,
Michael R. Koenigs ,
Jean Decety  and
Kent A. Kiehl
Nathaniel E. Anderson*
Affiliation:
The Mind Research Network & Lovelace Biomedical and Environmental Research Institute, Albuquerque, NM, USA
J. Michael Maurer
Affiliation:
The Mind Research Network & Lovelace Biomedical and Environmental Research Institute, Albuquerque, NM, USA University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA
Prashanth Nyalakanti
Affiliation:
The Mind Research Network & Lovelace Biomedical and Environmental Research Institute, Albuquerque, NM, USA
Keith A. Harenski
Affiliation:
The Mind Research Network & Lovelace Biomedical and Environmental Research Institute, Albuquerque, NM, USA
Carla L. Harenski
Affiliation:
The Mind Research Network & Lovelace Biomedical and Environmental Research Institute, Albuquerque, NM, USA
Michael R. Koenigs
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA
Jean Decety
Affiliation:
University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
Kent A. Kiehl
Affiliation:
The Mind Research Network & Lovelace Biomedical and Environmental Research Institute, Albuquerque, NM, USA University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA
*
Author for correspondence: Nathaniel E. Anderson, E-mail: nanderson@mrn.org
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Abstract

Background

Psychopathy is a personality disorder associated with severe emotional and interpersonal consequences and persistent antisocial behavior. Neurobiological models of psychopathy emphasize impairments in emotional processing, attention, and integration of information across large-scale neural networks in the brain. One of the largest integrative hubs in the brain is the corpus callosum (CC) – a large white matter structure that connects the two cerebral hemispheres.

Method

The current study examines CC volume, measured via Freesurfer parcellation, in a large sample (n = 495) of incarcerated men who were assessed for psychopathic traits using the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R).

Results

Psychopathy was associated with reduced volume across all five sub-regions of the CC. These relationships were primarily driven by the affective/interpersonal elements of psychopathy (PCL-R Factor 1), as no significant associations were found between the CC and the lifestyle/antisocial traits of psychopathy. The observed effects were not attributable to differences in substance use severity, age, IQ, or total brain volume.

Conclusions

These findings align with suggestions that core psychopathic traits may be fostered by reduced integrative capacity across large-scale networks in the brain.

Keywords

Connectivitycorpus callosumintegrationMRIPCL-Rpsychopathy
Type
Original Articles
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 49 , Issue 8 , June 2019 , pp. 1401 - 1408
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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