Abstract
Frontal lobe and consequent executive dysfunction have long been related to psychopathy. More recently, there have been suggestions that specific regions of frontal cortex, rather than all of frontal cortex, may be implicated in psychopathy. To examine this issue, the authors presented 25 individuals with psychopathy and 30 comparison individuals with measures preferentially indexing the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC; object alternation task), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC; spatial alternation task), and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC; number-Stroop reading and counting tasks). The individuals with psychopathy showed significant impairment on the measure preferentially sensitive to OFC functioning. In contrast, the 2 groups did not show impairment on the measures preferentially sensitive to the functioning of the DLPFC or ACC. These results are interpreted with reference to executive dysfunction accounts of the disorder.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 153-165 |
Number of pages | 13 |
Journal | Neuropsychology |
Volume | 20 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Mar 2006 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Anterior cingulate cortex (ACC)
- Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC)
- Orbitofrontal cortex (OFC)
- Psychopathy
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology