New study reveals brain basis of psychopathy + Anxiety in the UK

[C C]

Living in anxious times? The rise of anxiety disorders in the UK
https://www.nationalelfservice.net/menta...orders-uk/

EXCERPT: . . . We know the headline figures on general rates of anxiety in the UK. What has been missing has been good data from primary care (where most people with anxiety first seek help) and exploration of any changes over recent times. It has been commonly said in the media that we are living in more anxiety provoking times, but is that really true, and is it hitting everyone in the same way? A recent paper by Slee et al. (2021), published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, looks at temporal changes in recording of generalised anxiety in primary care and initial pharmacologic treatments... (MORE - details)

---

New Study Reveals Brain Basis of Psychopathy
https://www.utu.fi/en/news/press-release...sychopathy

RELEASE: According to a Finnish study, the structure and function of the brain areas involved in emotions and their regulation are altered in both psychopathic criminal offenders and otherwise well-functioning individuals who have personality traits associated with psychopathy.

Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterised by persistent antisocial behaviour, impaired empathy, and bold, disinhibited and egotistical traits. However, similar antisocial traits are also common, yet less pronounced, with people who are well-off psychologically and socially. It is possible that the characteristics related to psychopathy form a continuum where only the extreme characteristics lead to violent and criminal behaviour.

The collaborative study of Turku PET Centre, Karolinska Institutet, and Psychiatric Hospital for Prisoners in Finland examined the brain structure and function in psychopathic prisoners and healthy volunteers. Brain structure was measured with magnetic resonance imaging. The participants also viewed violent and non-violent films while their brain activity was monitored with functional magnetic resonance imaging.

• In psychopathic criminal offenders, the density of the brain areas involved in cognitive control and emotion regulation was compromised. When viewing violent films, these areas showed stronger reactions in psychopaths. In a large sample of healthy control participants, psychopathy-related traits were associated in similar changes in brain structure and function: The more psychopathic characteristics a person had, the more their brain resembled the brains of psychopathic criminals, explains Professor Lauri Nummenmaa from Turku PET Centre at the University of Turku, Finland.
  
  
• Structural and functional changes in the brain were focused in the areas involved in emotions and their regulation. The changes in the activity and structure of these areas can explain the callousness and impulsiveness associated with psychopathy, says Professor Jari Tiihonen from the Karolinska Institutet.
  
  
• The results show that the degree of psychopathic characteristics varies also in the general population. Having a little bit of psychopathy-related traits does not cause problems, but for about one percent of the population, psychopathy is so strong that it may lead to criminal and violent behaviour, notes Chief Psychiatrist and Docent Hannu Lauerma from the Psychiatric Hospital for Prisoners in Finland.
  
  
• Studying prisoners is difficult, but provides critical information about the neurobiology of violence and aggression. Conducting this type of a study would not have been possible without the help from the staff at Turku Prison, emphasises Nummenmaa.
  

The findings help to understand the biological mechanisms behind violence, and enable to plan new and more effective treatments to aggression and antisocial behaviour.

[Syne]

The only way to determine if the structure and function of the brain leads to things like psychopathy is to be able to predict psychopathy prior to any other evaluative signs. This doesn't happen, which means that they cannot determine causation. It could be just as likely that behavior causes the observed functional and structural differences in the brain, through neural plasticity, which known to do both.

So this finding is only meaningful for those who are already committed to a materialistic philosophy. The science alone doesn't make the conclusions they do.

[Magical Realist]

The only way to determine if the structure and function of the brain leads to things like psychopathy is to be able to predict psychopathy prior to any other evaluative signs.

Wrong. There is a history of brain damage being linked to the sudden exhibition of psychopathic traits. This strongly suggests the brain based cause of psychopathy.

Evidence and studies on the effect of prefrontal cortex damage on psychopathy:


"Perhaps the earliest evidence for a critical role of PFC in psychopathic personality is the famous case of Phineas Gage, the 19th century railroad construction foreman who had an iron rod shot through his face and out the top of his head in a freak excavation accident (Harlow 1868). Remarkably, Gage survived the blast, but his personality was permanently altered. Whereas before the accident Gage had been dependable and trustworthy, afterward he became disrespectful, profane, impulsive, and unreliable—traits reminiscent of psychopathy. Based on posthumous measures of his skull, Gage’s brain injury was projected to primarily involve the medial PFC (Damasio et al 1994). Throughout the 20th century, a number of similar cases of personality change following brain injury were reported. In 1975, Blumer and Benson coined the term “pseudopsychopathy” to encapsulate the personality changes (“the lack of adult tact and restraints”) observed in a subset of neurological patients with brain damage involving ventral PFC (Blumer & Benson 1975). The connection between PFC injury and pseudopsychopathic changes was subsequently elaborated by Antonio Damasio and colleagues. Reports from Damasio’s group associated damage to a specific sector of the PFC—the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) (Figure 1)—with an array of emotion and decision-making deficits, including conspicuously diminished guilt, shame, and empathy; irritability; poor planning; irresponsibility; and failure to learn from punishment (Barrash et al 2000, Bechara et al 1997, Damasio 1994, Eslinger & Damasio 1985). Experimentally, both psychopaths and vmPFC lesion patients have demonstrated reduced autonomic arousal to emotionally charged stimuli (Damasio et al 1990, Hare et al 1978, Patrick et al 1993, Patrick et al 1994) and deficits in reversal learning (Budhani et al 2006, Hornak et al 2004). More recent studies have linked vmPFC damage to changes in moral judgment (Ciaramelli et al 2007, Koenigs et al 2007, Young et al 2010), economic decision-making (Koenigs & Tranel 2007, Krajbich et al 2009, Moretti et al 2009), and reductions in negative affect (Koenigs et al 2008a, Koenigs et al 2008b). In some cases, comparable moral and economic decision-making profiles have been observed in primary (low-anxious) psychopaths (Koenigs et al 2010, Koenigs et al 2011). Overall, this collection of findings hints strongly that vmPFC dysfunction may underlie certain aspects of psychopathy (Blair 2007, Blair 2008). Accordingly, the review of neuroimaging results for psychopathy below will specifically address the extent to which this neuroanatomical hypothesis has been supported."


https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3937069/

[Syne]

Trauma coincident with the onset of psychopathic traits does nothing to prove causation. The emotional trauma could be causative, and likely is in cases of no significant PFC damage. The fact that it is "pseudopsychopathy" only "reminiscent of psychopathy" and only seen in "a subset of neurological patients with brain damage involving ventral PFC" means that it is not reliably predictive of actual psychopathy. In psychopaths without PFC damage "reduced autonomic arousal to emotionally charged stimuli" would seem to indicate a dissociative disorder (one of the actual diagnoses that include psychopathy).

Dissociative disorders usually develop as a way to cope with trauma.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-cond...c-20355215

So zero evidence of causation.

[Magical Realist]

Trauma coincident with the onset of psychopathic traits does nothing to prove causation. The emotional trauma could be causative, and likely is in cases of no significant PFC damage. The fact that it is "pseudopsychopathy" only "reminiscent of psychopathy" and only seen in "a subset of neurological patients with brain damage involving ventral PFC" means that it is not reliably predictive of actual psychopathy. In psychopaths without PFC damage "reduced autonomic arousal to emotionally charged stimuli" would seem to indicate a dissociative disorder (one of the actual diagnoses that include psychopathy).

Dissociative disorders usually develop as a way to cope with trauma.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-cond...c-20355215

So zero evidence of causation.

So the emotional trauma of getting hit in the head causes a change of personality towards psychopathic traits? lol I'll need a study to confirm that bullshit.

"The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is likely to play an important role in psychopathy. In particular, the ventromedial and anterior cingulate sectors of PFC are theorized to mediate a number of social and affective decision-making functions that appear to be disrupted in psychopathy. This article provides a critical summary of human neuroimaging data implicating prefrontal dysfunction in psychopathy. A growing body of evidence associates psychopathy with structural and functional abnormalities in ventromedial PFC and anterior cingulate cortex."

Here we see the emergence of psychopathic traits is linked to a dysfunction of the prefrontal cortex, as in the case of injury or lesions in that area. Explain how that can happen entirely from "emotional trauma" or even neuroplasticity.

[Syne]

I've already told you. If only a subset of those with such brain damage display psychopathy, it should be obvious that damage alone cannot account for it. The only way to prove it's physiological in origin would be the ability to predict it, from brain scans, etc., before any outward symptoms or signs. Once you have symptoms, whether from damage, genetics, or trauma, there's no way to differentiate it from neural plasticity. You cannot separate correlation from causation.