Psychopathic Prisoners: Article Analysis

Posteromedial Region of the Default Mode Network Shows Attenuated Task-Induced Deactivation in Psychopathic Prisoners is an article authored by Scott M. Freeman, David V. Clewett, Craig M. Bennett, Kent A. Kiehl, Michael S. Gazzaniga and Michael B. Miller. The aspect of neuropsychological function that this article focuses on is psychopathy. As mentioned in the article, psychopathy is a personality disorder that includes symptoms such as lack of empathy, remorse, antisocial behavior, and excessive self-focus. This article acknowledges that there are neuroimaging studies that connects psychopathy to dysfunction in the default mode network (DMN), and that this network is known to remain functional in individuals with psychopathic tendencies during

externally focused tasks, thereby suggesting a failure to properly deactivate. This article, however, points out that the precise extent and nature of task-induced DMN dysfunction is poorly understood, including (a) the degree to which specific DMN subregions are affected in criminal psychopaths, and (b) how activity in these subregions relates to affective/interpersonal and antisocial/lifestyle traits of psychopathy.
Furthermore, Freeman et al. asserts that two somewhat distinct groups of traits underlie psychopathy: one involving blunted affect and reduced concern for others (Factor 1), and the other involving impulsivity and antisocial actions (Factor 2). They also mention that functional MRI (fMRI) studies have yet to determine how, in an externally focused task, activity in various sub regions of the DMN relates to psychopathic traits in a population of clinical psychopaths, and thus to address these issues, a study was conducted, and this article was written to present the analysis and results of that study. The objectives in this article are to determine (1) the extent to which specific nodes of the DMN are dysfunctional in the psychopaths, and (2) how activity in the various DMN nodes relates to Factor 1 and Factor 2 sub scores in psychopaths. Overall, the goal of the present study was to localize task-induced deficits in the DMN of psychopaths to specific sub regions within this network. In healthy individuals, the DMN has been shown to be more active at rest or during self-referential processing, and consistently deactivates during an externally focused task
The participant of This study was composed of male prisoners who volunteered.

Their degree of psychopathy was then quantified using the Psychopathy Checklist–Revised (PCL-R) scale which is regarded as the standard for the clinical diagnosis of psychopathy the scores range from 0 meaning low-psychopathy and 40 meaning extreme-psychopathy in this study the cut off for the PCL-R score was twenty-eight. The group whose scores met or surpassed that threshold was referred to as the high-psychopathy group. The control group consisted of what would represent typical prisoners who attained a score at or bellow 20 and this group is known as low-psychopathy. The experiment utilized a simple Go/NoGO task in this task either the letter X or K were shown in a rectangular box for 250ms in white text If it were the letter X was displayed the prisoner was instructed to press a button this represents the GO trial in contrast if the letter K was to appear the instructions were to do nothing representing NoGO trial. The ratio of Go/NoGO was 84:16 meaning they were shown X considerably more than

K.
For the purpose of recording results an fMRI was used and the images from the fMRI were then preprocessed to remove low frequency drifts. Next, a software was used allowing for the delineation of the DMN, which should erratically deactivate in a planned manner in accordance with task conditions. The analysis indicated that the DMN component had a higher overlay with the standard DMN pattern than any other ICA component. In order to rid of task-induced variances in the activation within different nodes it was all broken down into six nodal ROIs. For each participant, mean task–baseline parameter estimates were removed Before comparing mean ROI activity across groups. The results establish that, in harmony the mPC region is definitively associated with Factor 1 scores of psychopathy. Furthermore, multiple lapses revealed that activity in the mPC was linked to affective/interpersonal traits. The data determined that Go PC, NoGo PC, and Go-RT did not significantly differ between high-psychopathy and low-psychopathy groups.
Finally, the results suggest that reduced deactivation of the mPC sub region of the DMN is essential to psychopathy and is a template that may be more connected with affective psychopathic qualities, as well as lack of worry for others.

Compared with distinctive, low-psychopathy prisoners, psychopathic prisoners showed less deactivation in the posteromedial cortical region of the DMN during an outwardly focused task. These outcomes propose a possible mechanism underlying crucial clinical traits linked with psychopathy. We found that mPC dysfunction relates explicitly to Factor 1 scores, signifying that a failure to turn off this critical DMN node during an outwardly focused task may be specially connected to affective/interpersonal deficits

in
criminal psychopaths.
My critiques on the article would be more elaborative it took many of readings and searches to understand what is being said also I would have liked to see more