Reduced spontaneous but relatively normal deliberate vicarious representations in psychopathy
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Psychopathy is a personality disorder associated with a profound lack of empathy. Neuroscientists have associated empathy and its interindividual variation with how strongly participants activate brain regions involved in their own actions, emotions and sensations while viewing those of others. Here we compared brain activity of 18 psychopathic offenders with 26 control subjects while viewing video clips of emotional hand interactions and while experiencing similar interactions. Brain regions involved in experiencing these interactions were not spontaneously activated as strongly in the patient group while viewing the video clips. However, this group difference was markedly reduced when we specifically instructed participants to feel with the actors in the videos. Our results suggest that psychopathy is not a simple incapacity for vicarious activations but rather reduced spontaneous vicarious activations co-existing with relatively normal deliberate counterparts.
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Selective impairments in empathy or Theory of Mind have been observed in different psychopathologies such as autism and psychopathy.
“In line with such independent functions, selective impairments in empathy or ToM have been observed in different psychopathologies such as autism and psychopathy.”
From On the interaction of social affect and cognition: empathy, compassion and theory of mind (2018) · cites this paper as [36]
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- Authors
- Meffert, H., Gazzola, V., den Boer, J. A., Bartels, A. A. J., & Keysers, C.
- Affiliations
- Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience (NL)
- Corresponding author
- Keysers, Christian
- Venue
- Brain
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2013-07-23
- Volume
- 136
- Issue
- 8
- Pages
- 2550-2562
- ISSN
- 0006-8950 (ISSN-L)
- 1460-2156
- PMC
- PMC3722356
- OpenAlex
- W2171909033
- Cited by
- 318
- References
- 75
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 15 · 2024: 19 · 2023: 15 · 2022: 50 · 2021: 20 · 2020: 25 · 2019: 28 · 2018: 32 · 2017: 31 · 2016: 25 · 2015: 26 · 2014: 21 · 2013: 1
- FWCI
- 27.04
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by-nc
- Locations
- Brain (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- KNAW Research Portal (The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- KNAW research portal (Royal Academy of Art and Sciences (KNAW)) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- University of Groningen research database (University of Groningen / Centre for Information Technology) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (452-04-305, 451-09-006)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychopathy, Forensic Psychiatry, Sexual Offending
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Action Observation and Synchronization
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Keywords
- psychopathy, empathy, spontaneous activation, video viewing, psychopathic offenders, neural basis of empathy, individual differences
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Antisocial Personality Disorder, Brain, Empathy, Humans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Middle Aged, Social Perception, Criminals
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