FLICKR, SARAH G...
Psychopaths are usually diagnosed by their behavioral patterns: an eccentric personality, including lack of empathy and remorse, deceptiveness, and abusive actions. Now, researchers have shown that psychopaths also have differences in particular brain regions, with fewer connections between the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), a brain region involved in feelings of empathy and guilt, and the amygdala, which mediates fear and anxiety, according to a study published in the November 30 issue of Journal of Neuroscience.
Michael Koenigs, assistant professor of psychiatry in the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, and his colleagues scanned the brains of 40 inmates at a medium-security prison in Wisconsin, and compared those with psychopathy to those who had been convicted of similar crimes but did not have ...
