The Brains of Psycopathic Violent Offenders Can't Comprehend Punishment

Scientists have taken a closer look at psychopathic violent offenders and have found something that could have huge implications for how these offenders are treated. It turns out that these offenders have abnormalities in the parts of the brain related to learning from punishment.

In order to develop programs that prevent offending and rehabilitation programs that reduce re-offending, it's crucial to identify the neural mechanisms underlying psychopaths' persistent violent behavior. That's why scientists used Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) to study the brain structure and function in a sample of violent offenders in England. Half of the group had psychopathy and the other half did not. They also included a sample group of healthy non-offenders.

"We observed reductions in grey matter volumes bilaterally in the anterior rostral prefrontal cortex and temporal poles relative to the other offenders and to the non-offenders," said Sheilagh Hodgins, one of the researchers, in a news release. "Abnormalities were also found in white matter fiber tracts in the dorsal cingulum, linking the posterior cingulate cortex to the medial prefrontal cortex that were specifically associated with the lack of empathy that is typical of psychopathy."

These brain regions are involved in empathy, the processing of pro-social emotions such as guilt and embarrassment and moral reasoning. In addition, these same regions are involved in learning from rewards and punishment.

In the case of those with psychopathy, the researchers found that when the violent offenders completed neuropsychological tasks, they failed to learn from punishment cues and to change their behavior in the face of changing contingencies.

"Offenders with psychopathy may only consider the possible positive consequences and fail to take account of the likely negative consequences," said Hodgins. "Consequently, their behavior often leads to punishment rather than reward as they had expected. Punishment signals the necessity to change behavior. Clearly, in certain situations, offenders have difficulty learning from punishment to change their behavior."

The findings are crucial for the development of programs to prevent violent criminality. This could help rehabilitate those who commit violent crimes.

The findings are published in the journal The Lancet Psychiatry.

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