title: Brain Structural Correlates of Emotion Recognition in Psychopaths.
abstract: Individuals with psychopathy present deficits in the recognition of facial emotional expressions. However, the nature and extent of these alterations are not fully understood. Furthermore, available data on the functional neural correlates of emotional face recognition deficits in adult psychopaths have provided mixed results. In this context, emotional face morphing tasks may be suitable for clarifying mild and emotion-specific impairments in psychopaths. Likewise, studies exploring corresponding anatomical correlates may be useful for disentangling available neurofunctional evidence based on the alleged neurodevelopmental roots of psychopathic traits. We used Voxel-Based Morphometry and a morphed emotional face expression recognition task to evaluate the relationship between regional gray matter (GM) volumes and facial emotion recognition deficits in male psychopaths. In comparison to male healthy controls, psychopaths showed deficits in the recognition of sad, happy and fear emotional expressions. In subsequent brain imaging analyses psychopaths with better recognition of facial emotional expressions showed higher volume in the prefrontal cortex (orbitofrontal, inferior frontal and dorsomedial prefrontal cortices), somatosensory cortex, anterior insula, cingulate cortex and the posterior lobe of the cerebellum. Amygdala and temporal lobe volumes contributed to better emotional face recognition in controls only. These findings provide evidence suggesting that variability in brain morphometry plays a role in accounting for psychopaths' impaired ability to recognize emotional face expressions, and may have implications for comprehensively characterizing the empathy and social cognition dysfunctions typically observed in this population of subjects.
authors.affiliation: Child-Juvenile Mental Health Center of Sant Joan de Déu, Lleida, Spain.|Biomedical Research Institute (IRB), Lleida, Spain.|Medicine Department, University of Lleida, Lleida, Spain.
authors.forename: Vanessa
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Pera-Guardiola
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Bellvitge University Hospital, Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute-IDIBELL, and Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Salud Mental (CIBERSAM), Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Oren
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Contreras-Rodríguez
authors.affiliation: Biomedical Research Institute (IRB), Lleida, Spain.|Medicine Department, University of Lleida, Lleida, Spain.|GSS, Hospital Santa Maria, Psychiatry Department, Lleida, Spain.
authors.forename: Iolanda
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Batalla
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, North Chicago, United States of America.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Kosson
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Bellvitge University Hospital, Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute-IDIBELL, and Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Salud Mental (CIBERSAM), Barcelona, Spain.|Department Clinical Sciences, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: José M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Menchón
authors.affiliation: Biomedical Research Institute (IRB), Lleida, Spain.|Medicine Department, University of Lleida, Lleida, Spain.|GSS, Hospital Santa Maria, Psychiatry Department, Lleida, Spain.
authors.forename: Josep
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Pifarré
authors.affiliation: Medical Department of Ponent Penitentiary Center, Lleida, Spain.
authors.forename: Javier
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bosque
authors.affiliation: Depression and anxiety program, Department of Mental Health, Parc Tauli Sabadell, Hospital Universitari, Barcelona, Spain.|Department of Psychiatry and Legal Medicine, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Narcís
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Cardoner
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Bellvitge University Hospital, Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute-IDIBELL, and Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Salud Mental (CIBERSAM), Barcelona, Spain.|Department of Psychobiology and Methodology of Health Sciences, Universitat Autònoma, Barcelona, Spain.
authors.forename: Carles
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Soriano-Mas
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000987:Antisocial Personality Disorder / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000473:pathology* / Q000523:psychology; D001921:Brain / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000473:pathology*; D004644:Emotions; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged