title: Facial emotion processing in criminal psychopathy. Preliminary functional magnetic resonance imaging study.
abstract: 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).
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To investigate brain function when individuals with psychopathy and a control group process facial emotion.
  
  
  METHODS
  Using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging we compared six people scoring > or =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.
authors.affiliation: Section of Brain Maturation, Institute of Psychiatry, De Crespigny Park, London SE5 8AF, UK.
authors.forename: Quinton
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Deeley
authors.forename: Eileen
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Daly
authors.forename: Simon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Surguladze
authors.forename: Nigel
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Tunstall
authors.forename: Gill
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Mezey
authors.forename: Dominic
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Beer
authors.forename: Anita
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ambikapathy
authors.forename: Dene
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Robertson
authors.forename: Vincent
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Giampietro
authors.forename: Michael J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Brammer
authors.forename: Amory
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Clarke
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Dowsett
authors.forename: Tom
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Fahy
authors.forename: Mary L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Phillips
authors.forename: Declan G
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Murphy
mesh_terms: D000987:Antisocial Personality Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology; D001931:Brain Mapping; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005149:Facial Expression; D005555:Forensic Psychiatry / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*