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Reduced spontaneous but relatively normal deliberate vicarious representations in psychopathy
Open accessAbstract
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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“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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BackgroundInfluentialUp-regulation of neural indicators of empathic concern in an offender population
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“The present work expands on previous research demonstrating that empathy for vicarious touch (Meffert et al., 2013) and emotional facial expressions (Kim et al.”
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“Thus, in line with prior research, CD may have the ability to empathize (22), but rely on different neural mechanisms.”
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Gamble, R. S., Henry, J. D., Decety, J., & Vanman, E. J. (2024) · Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews · doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2024.105540 · Cited by 25
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“of reduced pain-network activation in individuals identified as high in antisociality or psychopathy [50, 51, 71], a smaller”
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Berluti, K., O'Connell, K., Rhoads, S. A., Brethel-Haurwitz, K. M., Cardinale, E. M., Vekaria, K., Robertson, E. L., Walitt, B., VanMeter, J., & Marsh, A. A. (2020) · Journal of Personality Disorders · doi:10.1521/pedi.2020.34.5.628 · Cited by 16
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“During cognitively demanding tasks, people with psychopathy have shown reduced activity when presented with salient sensory information in anterior insula [55 – 57] and anterior cingulate (based on meta-analyses) [50].”
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“Meffert and colleagues [79] found that specifically instructing individuals with psychopathic traits to try and ‘feel what an actor was feeling’ increased their ability to do so.”
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“This accords with previous studies that have found reduced brain activation during passive observation of others’ distress [11] or affective memory tasks [13] in psychopaths.”
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The Empath and the Psychopath: Ethics, Imagination, and Intercorporeality in Bryan Fuller'sHannibal
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The Vicarious Brain: Integrating Empathy and Emotional Learning
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“In sum, we found preliminary evidence that altered medial frontal activity is specific to contexts in which psy-chopathic persons are instructed to empathize with another person (cf. Meffert et al., 2013).”
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The Neural Signature of Empathy for Physical Pain … Not Quite There Yet!
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“With the right training, empathy can be activated deliberately in individuals with psychopathy (Meffert et al., 2013).”
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RETRACTED ARTICLE: Psychopathic personality characteristics amongst high functioning populations
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Hurlemann, R., & Marsh, N. (2016) · Der Nervenarzt · doi:10.1007/s00115-016-0229-3 · Cited by 6
The implications of frontotemporal dementia for brain dysfunction in psychopathy
Mendez, M. F. (2022) · Biological Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2022.108342 · Cited by 8
Ge, Y., Ashwin, C., Li, F., Cao, W., Zhang, Y., Zhao, X., Sun, B., & Li, W. (2023) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0275903 · Cited by 6
Jameel, L., Vyas, K., Bellesi, G., Crawford, S., & Channon, S. (2019) · Cognitive Neuropsychiatry · doi:10.1080/13546805.2019.1667317 · Cited by 6
Kunaharan, S., Halpin, S. A., Sitharthan, T., & Walla, P. (2019) · Brain Sciences · doi:10.3390/brainsci9110298 · Cited by 6
“Future studies may wish to administer this questionnaire in its intended format as changing the format may have had an effect on self-monitoring as our cohort scored lower on the scale compared with similar studies which also utilised a normal population [53].”
ResultScheeff, J., Schneidt, A., & Schönenberg, M. (2021) · Journal of Neuroscience Research · doi:10.1002/jnr.24941 · Cited by 6
“…receives further support from experimental findings suggesting that psychopaths show reduced neural activity to images depicting pain of others, whereas they show normal activation after requesting them to imagine that they were the ones in pain (Decety et al., 2013; Meffert et al., 2013).”
BackgroundStolz, D. S., Vater, A., Schott, B. H., Roepke, S., Paulus, F. M., & Krach, S. (2021) · NeuroImage Clinical · doi:10.1016/j.nicl.2021.102800 · Cited by 9
“Pathological narcissism likely represents a singular dimension, with NPD as an extreme (Aslinger et al., 2018) that is linked to reduced empathy (Ritter et al., 2011; Schulze et al., 2013), and distress of close others (Miller et al., 2007).”
BackgroundBontemps, A. P., Batky, B. D., Houser, R. A., & Salekin, R. T. (2022) · Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment · doi:10.1007/s10862-021-09945-5 · Cited by 6
“For example, research has shown that the amygdala may be activated by having individuals pay more attention to fear provoking information (Larson et al., 2013; Meffert et al., 2013).”
BackgroundThe Cognitive–Affective Social Processing and Emotion Regulation (CASPER) model
Camacho, M. C., Deshpande, E., & Perino, M. T. (2025) · Neuropsychopharmacology · doi:10.1038/s41386-025-02224-x · Cited by 8
“As such, failure to focus attention towards such distress cues may just as easily re fl ect misalignment with goals as it does with an inability to do so [113].”
Social decision-making in highly psychopathic offenders – A systematic literature review
Hauser, N., Hollerbach, P., & Habermeyer, E. (2022) · Aggression and Violent Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.avb.2022.101797 · Cited by 5
The Implications of Moral Neuroscience for Brain Disease: Review and Update
Mendez, M. F. (2023) · Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology · doi:10.1097/wnn.0000000000000344 · Cited by 5
Psychopathy, pain, and pain empathy: A psychophysiological study
Alshukri, S., Lyons, M. T., Blinkhorn, V., Muñoz, L., & Fallon, N. B. (2024) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0306461 · Cited by 7
Horne, K., Saraiva, L. D. A., de Souza, L. C., & Irish, M. (2025) · Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews · doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2025.106128 · Cited by 6
“Individuals with high levels of psy-chopathic traits often exhibit a lack of empathy toward others (Blair, 2018; Viding et al., 2014), however, when explicitly instructed to empathise, their responses do not differ from those of healthy controls (Meffert et al., 2013).”
Professionalization of Empathy: Problem Statement
Karyagina, T. D. (2017) · Counseling Psychology and Psychotherapy · doi:10.17759/cpp.2015230511 · Cited by 5
de Wied, M. A., Meeus, W., & Boxtel, A. V. (2021) · Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment · doi:10.1007/s10862-021-09891-2 · Cited by 5
Empathy and Dark Personalities
Wertag, A. (2022) · IntechOpen eBooks · doi:10.5772/intechopen.107446 · Cited by 7
Skjegstad, C. L., Trevor, C., Swanborough, H., Roswandowitz, C., Mokros, A., Habermeyer, E., & Frühholz, S. (2022) · Translational Psychiatry · doi:10.1038/s41398-022-02260-x · Cited by 5
“While socially unresponsive to others’ distress (amygdala and aINS hypoactivity) [7, 16, 18–20], social affection (MTL dysfunctions) [19], and coercive harm (dMFC hypoactivity) [21], their cognitive empathy abilities (MNS system, neural mentalizing system) [22] seem instrumental to manipulate others [23, 24] and to en…”
BackgroundSet-Congruent Priming Stimuli Normalize the Information Processing of Psychopathic Offenders
Dargis, M. A., Mattern, A. C., & Newman, J. P. (2017) · Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment · doi:10.1007/s10862-017-9587-9 · Cited by 5
“2006; Thornton & Blud, 2007), there is increasing evidence that these deficits are situation-specific rather than pan-situational (Meffert et al. 2013; Newman et al. 2010; Newman and Kosson 1986).”
BackgroundInfluentialNo feelings for me, no feelings for you: A meta-analysis on alexithymia and empathy in psychopathyPreprint
Burghart, M., & Mier, D. U. (2021) · doi:10.31234/osf.io/v2e8q · Cited by 5
“, 2020), it requires conscious cognitive control in psychopathic individuals (Meffert et al., 2013).”
BackgroundDifferential Benefits of Mental Training Types for Attention, Compassion, and Theory of MindPreprint
Trautwein, F., Kanske, P., Böckler, A., & Singer, T. (2017) · PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) · doi:10.31234/osf.io/k5dqb · Cited by 6
Ma, S., Maresh, E. L., Coppola, A. M., Richard, K. E., Beltrán, D. G., Koban, L., Sbarra, D. A., & Andrews‐Hanna, J. R. (2024) · PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) · doi:10.31234/osf.io/qcj45 · Cited by 7
Metadata
- 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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