title: Brain self-regulation in criminal psychopaths.
abstract: Psychopathic individuals are characterized by impaired affective processing, impulsivity, sensation-seeking, poor planning skills and heightened aggressiveness with poor self-regulation. Based on brain self-regulation studies using neurofeedback of Slow Cortical Potentials (SCPs) in disorders associated with a dysregulation of cortical activity thresholds and evidence of deficient cortical functioning in psychopathy, a neurobiological approach seems to be promising in the treatment of psychopathy. The results of our intensive brain regulation intervention demonstrate, that psychopathic offenders are able to gain control of their brain excitability over fronto-central brain areas. After SCP self-regulation training, we observed reduced aggression, impulsivity and behavioral approach tendencies, as well as improvements in behavioral-inhibition and increased cortical sensitivity for error-processing. This study demonstrates improvements on the neurophysiological, behavioral and subjective level in severe psychopathic offenders after SCP-neurofeedback training and could constitute a novel neurobiologically-based treatment for a seemingly change-resistant group of criminal psychopaths.
authors: 1] Institute of Medical Psychology and Behavioural Neurobiology, Eberhard-Karls-University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany [2] International Centre for Ethics in the Science and Humanities, Eberhard-Karls-University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
authors: Lilian
authors: L
authors: Konicar
authors: Institute of Medical Psychology and Behavioural Neurobiology, Eberhard-Karls-University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
authors: Ralf
authors: R
authors: Veit
authors: 1] Department of Forensic Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany [2] Department of Psychology, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom.
authors: Hedwig
authors: H
authors: Eisenbarth
authors: Institute of Medical Psychology and Behavioural Neurobiology, Eberhard-Karls-University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
authors: Beatrix
authors: B
authors: Barth
authors: Ospedale San Camillo, Istituto di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico, Venezia, Italy.
authors: Paolo
authors: P
authors: Tonin
authors: Institute of Medical Psychology and Behavioural Neurobiology, Eberhard-Karls-University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
authors: Ute
authors: U
authors: Strehl
authors: 1] Institute of Medical Psychology and Behavioural Neurobiology, Eberhard-Karls-University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany [2] Ospedale San Camillo, Istituto di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico, Venezia, Italy.
authors: Niels
authors: N
authors: Birbaumer
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000374:Aggression; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D003415:Crime / Q000523:psychology*; D005071:Evoked Potentials; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D057566:Self Report; D000068356:Self-Control