The Cognitive Neuroscience of Female Psychopathy

描述（由申请人提供）：精神病是一种人格障碍，包括人际关系，情感和行为特征。患有精神病的人对不成比例的民事破坏负有责任，包括刑事和非刑事。精神病的社会成本与其他类似患病率的主要精神疾病（约占总人口的1%）相当。然而，相对于其他主要的心理健康障碍（例如，精神分裂症），我们才刚刚开始了解精神病的相关神经生物学。包括杏仁核、眶额叶皮质、前颞叶、前扣带回和后扣带回在内的边缘系统和边缘系统脑区的各个方面似乎与这种疾病有关。尽管取得了这些进展，但精神病的认知神经科学几乎仅限于男性样本。历史记录和最近的临床评估数据表明，精神病的结构在女性中具有与男性相似的心理测量特性。然而，迄今为止，还没有关于女性精神病的认知神经科学研究。本建议的目的是检查女性罪犯的边缘系统和边缘系统电路的完整性与精神病。电生理和血流动力学成像数据将被用来映射功能神经结构与注意力控制，错误监控，并在女性罪犯的精神病评分分层的道德决策。这项研究将利用一个移动的磁共振成像系统，该系统将部署到监狱设施，以收集大量的女罪犯样本。这一大样本的女性罪犯的详细分析，将使我们能够全面评估的边缘功能障碍假说的精神病，酒精和药物滥用的调节作用，并评估心理测量模型的维度或分类性质的结构的精神病在妇女。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Psychopathy is a personality disorder comprised of a constellation of interpersonal, affective and behavioral characteristics. Individuals with psychopathy are responsible for a disproportionate amount of civil disruption, both criminal and noncriminal. The societal cost of psychopathy rivals that of other major mental illnesses of similar prevalence (~1% general population). However, relative to other major mental health disorders (e.g., schizophrenia), we are only beginning to understand the relevant neurobiology of psychopathy. Aspects of limbic and paralimbic brain regions including the amygdala, orbital frontal cortex, anterior temporal lobe, and anterior and posterior cingulate appear to be implicated in the disorder. Despite these advances, the cognitive neuroscience of psychopathy has nearly exclusively been limited to samples of men. Historical accounts and recent clinical assessment data suggest that the construct of psychopathy has similar psychometric properties in women as it does in men. However, to date there have been no cognitive neuroscience studies of psychopathy in women. The purpose of the present proposal is to examine the integrity of the limbic and paralimbic circuitry in female offenders with psychopathy. Electrophysiological and hemodynamic imaging data will be used to map the functional neural architecture associated with attentional control, error-monitoring, and moral decision-making in female offenders stratified by psychopathy scores. This research will utilize a mobile MRI system that will be deployed to prison facilities to collect a large sample of female offenders. Detailed analyses of this large sample of female offenders will enable us to comprehensively evaluate the paralimbic dysfunction hypothesis of psychopathy, the moderating impact of alcohol and substance abuse, and to evaluate psychometric models regarding the dimensional or categorical nature of the construct of psychopathy in women.