Many criminal offenders display
psychopathic traits, such as antisocial and impulsive behaviour. And yet some
individuals with psychopathic traits do not commit offences for which they are
convicted. As with any other form of behaviour, psychopathic behaviour has a
neurobiological basis. Researchers from the Donders Institute and the
Department of Psychiatry at Radboudumc wanted to find out whether the way a
psychopath’s brain works is visibly different from that of a non-psychopath.
And whether there are differences between the brains of criminal and
non-criminal psychopaths. Researchers in the Department of Psychiatry at
Radboudumc carried out tests on 14 convicted psychopathic individuals, and 20
non-criminal individuals, half of whom had a high score on the psychopathy
scale. The participants performed tests while their brain activity was measured
in an MRI scanner.
They saw that the reward centre
in the brains of people with many psychopathic traits (both criminal and
non-criminal) were more strongly activated than those in people without
psychopathic traits. It has already been proved that the brains of non-criminal
individuals with psychopathic traits are triggered by the expectation of
reward. This research shows that this is also the case for criminal individuals
with psychopathic traits. Another interesting difference was discovered between
non-criminal people with multiple psychopathic traits and criminal people with
psychopathic traits. There is a difference in the communication between the
reward centre and an area in the middle of the forebrain. Good communication
between these areas would appear to be a condition for self-control. Results
seem to indicate that the tendency to commit an offence arises from a
combination of a strong focus on reward and a lack of self-control. This is the
first project in which convicted criminals were actually examined.
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