title: Cortical correlates of impaired self-regulation in personality disordered patients with traits of psychopathy.
abstract: Psychopathic personality disordered patients would, by virtue of a failure to self-regulate, be expected to show diminished amplitudes of feedback-related brain potentials. Among a sample of personality disordered patients detained at different levels of security, those who met a Psychopathy Checklist (PCL) criterion of 25 or above were identified (N = 27). Their event-related brain potentials (ERPs), together with those of their nonpsychopathic counterparts (N = 22) and healthy male controls (N = 20), were measured while they performed a visual Go/No Go task, with feedback given for correct and incorrect performance. Psychopathic patients showed a significantly reduced amplitude of an early frontal negative ERP component maximally evoked by negative feedback, and a high rate of errors of commission. Findings are consistent with the idea that psychopathic patients' unsuccessful attempts to self-regulate reflect a cognitive deficit characterised by a failure to attend and respond to a mismatch between expected and obtained outcomes.
authors.affiliation: University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK.
authors.forename: Anton
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Varlamov
authors.forename: Najat
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Khalifa
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Liddle
authors.forename: Conor
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Duggan
authors.forename: Rick
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Howard
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000987:Antisocial Personality Disorder / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D012927:Social Control, Informal