title: Selective Mapping of Psychopathy and Externalizing to Dissociable Circuits for Inhibitory Self-Control.
abstract: Antisociality is commonly conceptualized as a unitary construct, but there is considerable evidence for multidimensionality. In particular, two partially dissociable symptom clusters - psychopathy and externalizing - have divergent associations to clinical and forensic outcomes and are linked to unique patterns executive dysfunction. Here, we used fMRI in a sample of incarcerated offenders to map these dimensions of antisocial behavior to brain circuits underlying two aspects of inhibitory self-control: interference suppression and response inhibition. We found that psychopathy and externalizing are characterized by unique and task-selective patterns of dysfunction. While higher levels of psychopathy predicted increased activity within a distributed fronto-parietal network for interference suppression, externalizing did not predict brain activity during attentional control. By contrast, each dimension had opposite associations to fronto-parietal activity during response inhibition. These findings provide neurobiological evidence supporting the fractionation of antisocial behavior, and identify dissociable mechanisms through which different facets predispose dysfunction and impairment.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Harvard University.
authors.forename: Alexandra M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Rodman
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Harvard University.
authors.forename: Erik
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Kastman
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Harvard University.
authors.forename: Hayley M
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Dorfman
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Yale University.
authors.forename: Arielle
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Baskin-Sommers
authors.affiliation: MIND Institute, Albuquerque, NM.
authors.forename: Kent A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Kiehl
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
authors.forename: Joseph P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Newman
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Harvard University; Center for Brain Science, Harvard University; Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital.
authors.forename: Joshua W
authors.initials: JW
authors.lastname: Buckholtz
keywords: Externalizing; Impulsivity; Psychopathy; Self-Control; fMRI