Adolescent Psychopathic Traits Negatively Relate to Hemodynamic Activity within the Basal Ganglia during Error-Related Processing.

Adolescent Psychopathic Traits Negatively Relate to Hemodynamic Activity within the Basal Ganglia during Error-Related Processing. J Abnorm Child Psychol. 2019 May 18;: Authors: Maurer JM, Steele VR, Vincent GM, Rao V, Calhoun VD, Kiehl KA Abstract Youth with elevated psychopathic traits exhibit a number of comparable neurocognitive deficits as adult psychopathic offenders, including error-related processing deficits. Subregions of the basal ganglia play an important, though indirect, role in error-related processing through connections with cortical areas including the anterior cingulate cortex. A number of recent structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (s/fMRI) studies have associated basal ganglia dysfunction in youth with elevated psychopathic traits, but these studies have not examined whether dysfunction occurring within subregions of the basal ganglia help contribute to error-related processing deficits previously observed in such at-risk youth. Here, we investigated error-related processing using a response inhibition Go/NoGo fMRI experimental paradigm in a large sample of incarcerated male adolescent offenders (n = 182). In the current report, psychopathy scores (measured via the Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL:YV)) were negatively related to hemodynamic activity within input nuclei of the basal ganglia (i.e., the caudate and nucleus accumbens), as well as intrinsic/output nuclei (i.e., the globus ...
Source: Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: J Abnorm Child Psychol Source Type: research