Researchers wanted to understand why les had this character trait and developed this lack of empathy. They went to an American medium security prison, where 23% of the population is psychopathic. Contrary to what one might think, psychopathy is not a mental illness. Rather, scientists define it as a personality disorder, deviance from norms. Not all psychopaths are serial killers! On the other hand, they all have antisocial behavior. They never feel remorse, are incapable of normal human behavior as they fail to maintain relationships with others. In France, psychopathy affects 2 to 3% of the population and more particularly men between 20 and 30 years old.
An MRI brain scan
The researchers chose to observe the brain activity of 212 detainees by functional MRI. The prisoners were divided into three groups according to their level of psychopathy: high, medium or low.
During this experiment, participants had to look at pictures depicting physical pain such as a finger stuck in a doorway or a toe stuck under a heavy object.
The researchers then asked them to imagine that they themselves had experienced these accidents and then to think that others suffered them.
Psychopaths do not feel any empathy and experience pleasure.
When psychopathic inmates imagined themselves in these painful situations, the researchers found on the scans a strong brain activity (even higher than normal) of the regions involved in empathy and pain. On the other hand, these regions of the brain failed to become active when the inmates imagined that these situations were being experienced by others.
Worse, the psychopathic prisoners even showed increased activation in the region of the brain involved in pleasure.
This study was published in the magazine specialized in neuroscience: “Frontiers in Human Neuroscience”.
