Facial emotion processing in criminal psychopathy: Preliminary functional magnetic resonance imaging study
Open accessAbstract
Background: It has been suggested that people with psychopathic disorders lack empathy because they have deficits in processing distress cues (e.g. fearful facial expressions). Aims: To investigate brain function when individuals with psychopathy and a control group process facial emotion. Method: Using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging we compared six people scoring ⩾25 on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist–Revised and nine non-psychopathic healthy volunteers during an implicit emotion processing task using fearful, happy and neutral faces. Results: The psychopathy group showed significantly less activation than the control group in fusiform and extrastriate cortices when processing both facial emotions. However, emotion type affected response pattern. Both groups increased fusiform and extrastriate cortex activation when processing happy faces compared with neutral faces, but this increase was significantly smaller in the psychopathy group. In contrast, when processing fearful faces compared with neutral faces, the control group showed increased activation but the psychopathy group decreased activation in the fusiform gyrus. Conclusions: People with psychopathy have biological differences from controls when processing facial emotion, and the pattern of response differs according to emotion type.
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The fronto-cerebellar dysregulation deficits in ASD may be associated with structural brain abnormalities in ASD in cerebellar vermis and left frontal regions, as well as with evidence for abnormal functional and structural fronto-cerebellar connectivity.
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- Authors
- Deeley, Q., Daly, E., Surguladze, S., Tunstall, N., Mezey, G., Beer, D., Ambikapathy, A., Robertson, D., Giampietro, V., Brammer, M. J., Clarke, A., Dowsett, J., Fahy, T., Phillips, M. L., & Murphy, D. G.
- Affiliations
- King's College London (GB)
- St George's, University of London (GB)
- National Health Service (GB)
- South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust (GB)
- University of Pittsburgh (US)
- Corresponding author
- Murphy, Declan G.
- ORCID
- Venue
- British Journal of Psychiatry
- Publisher
- Royal College of Psychiatrists
- Published
- 2006-12
- Volume
- 189
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 533-539
- ISSN
- 0007-1250 (ISSN-L)
- 1472-1465
- OpenAlex
- W2128034453
- Cited by
- 176
- References
- 42
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 5 · 2018: 11 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 6 · 2015: 8 · 2014: 19 · 2013: 17 · 2012: 11
- FWCI
- 12.53
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- The British Journal of Psychiatry (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- ORCA Online Research @Cardiff (Cardiff University) (submittedVersion)
- Research Portal (King's College London) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Psychopathy, Forensic Psychiatry, Sexual Offending
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
- Keywords
- psychopathy, emotional face processing, facial expressions, fear, happiness, fusiform gyrus, extrastriate cortex, implicit emotion processing, empathy deficits, Psychopathy Checklist-Revised, brain activation
- MeSH terms
- Antisocial Personality Disorder, Brain Mapping, Emotions, Facial Expression, Forensic Psychiatry, Humans, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Pattern Recognition, Visual, Recognition, Psychology
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