VENTRAL FRONTAL DEFICITS IN PSYCHOPATHY - NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL TEST FINDINGS

The hypothesis of prefrontal dysfunction in psychopathy has been pursu ed for many years, without convincing results. It is proposed here tha t this approach in previous studies was far too global. The present in vestigation was carried out in order to test a more specific hypothesi s of orbitofrontal and/or frontal ventromedial deficits in psychopathy . Psychopathic criminals were compared to non-psychopathic criminals w ith measures related to orbitofrontal or frontal ventromedial function ing, as well as with control measures more associated with frontodorso lateral and posterorolandic functions. All subjects provided urine sam ples for drug assay. It was found that, while the two groups performed similarly on all the control measures, including the drug tests, the psychopaths were significantly impaired on all the orbitofrontal-ventr omedial tasks. The psychopaths were significantly impulsive on several tests as well as significantly dysnosmic. The latter finding is parti cularly important in the sense that it cannot readily be explained soc ioculturally, thus presenting a new and convincing argument for brain- based etiology of this disorder. The results are discussed in relation to other psychiatric disorders characterized by impulse dyscontrol as well as in relation to other putative neurobiological etiological fac tors in psychopathy.