Adolescent psychopathy, heart rate, and skin conductance

• Published in: Psychophysiology Vol. 56; no. 6; pp. e13344 - n/a
• Main Authors: MacDougall, Emily A.M., Salekin, Randall T., Gillen, Christopher T.A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01-06-2019
• Subjects: Adolescent; adolescents; Antisocial personality disorder; Autonomic nervous system; Conductance; Galvanic Skin Response - physiology; Heart rate; Heart Rate - physiology; Humans; Life span; Male; Mental Disorders - physiopathology; psychopathy; skin conductance; Social behavior; Teenagers; heart rate; psychopathy; skin conductance; adolescents
• ISSN: 0048-5772; 1469-8986; 1540-5958
• DOI: 10.1111/psyp.13344

Researchers have advocated for a greater focus on measuring neurobiological underpinnings of serious psychological conditions such as psychopathy. This has become particularly important to investigate early in the life span, when intervention efforts for psychopathy‐related behavior like conduct disorder (CD) are more successful. Given that psychopathy is a complex syndrome, it is also important to investigate physiological processes at a dimensional level. Using a sample of 56 adolescent male offenders (Mage = 15.92; SD = 1.31), this study explored the relationship between the Psychopathy Checklist–Youth Version (Forth, Kosson, & Hare, 2003), heart rate (HR), and skin conductance (SC). A white noise countdown task was used to measure autonomic activity across a baseline, anticipatory (prenoise), and reactivity (postnoise) period. Findings revealed no significant associations between psychopathy and HR activity across the time intervals. However, results revealed a positive association between grandiose‐manipulative traits and SC activity and a negative association between callous‐unemotional traits and SC activity. The results indicate that autonomic processes may contribute to distinct psychopathic traits in different ways, implicating slightly differential brain functioning. The findings suggest that, in order to better understand and treat youth with CD, future research should continue to examine the biological correlates of psychopathy at the broader construct level but perhaps especially at the component level.
Child psychopathy is an important clinical construct with links to conduct disorder. The current study examined the psychopathy components (grandiose‐manipulative, callous‐unemotional, daring‐impulsive) in relation to heart rate (HR) and skin conductance (SC). Results showed no HR‐related differences, but indicated an interplay between psychopathy dimensions and SC, potentially indicating weak amygdala signals for threat stimuli for those with callous‐unemotional traits, but heightened cortical functioning and alertness to environment changes for grandiose‐manipulative traits. These findings highlight the importance of the two‐way communication between the heart and the brain and also to the importance of examining the components of psychopathy.