Disturbance of emotional processing and perception of social situations in psychopathy -: A new match/mismatch paradigma in fMRI

Objective The ability of emotional processing and empathy is impaired in patients with a severe antisocial personality disorder(psychopathy). Method 48 participants performed a match/mismatch paradigma that required attention be given to the affect of face stimuli and a negative, positive or neutral picture from the International Affective Picture System (LAPS). Results In contrast to healthy controls there is a higher rate of errors for patients with psychopathy expected. The brain activity during the new paradigma is estimated to be different for psychopathy in ventromedial prefrontal Cortex and right superior temporal sulcus. Conclusions Impaired emotional processing is a key factor in psychopathy. The match/mismatch paradigma can be very useful to analyse specific emotional and social characteristics of psychopathy.