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Brain volumes differ between diagnostic groups of violent criminal offenders

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Abstract

Studies on structural abnormalities in antisocial individuals have reported inconsistent results, possibly due to inhomogeneous samples, calling for an investigation of brain alterations in psychopathologically stratified subgroups. We explored structural differences between antisocial offenders with either borderline personality disorder (ASPD-BPD) or high psychopathic traits (ASPD-PP) and healthy controls (CON) using region-of-interest-based and voxel-based morphometry approaches. Besides common distinct clusters of reduced gray matter volumes within the frontal pole and occipital cortex, there was remarkably little overlap in the regional distribution of brain abnormalities in ASPD-BPD and ASPD-PP, when compared to CON. Specific alterations of ASPD-BPD were detected in orbitofrontal and ventromedial prefrontal cortex regions subserving emotion regulation and reactive aggression and the temporal pole, which is involved in the interpretation of other peoples’ motives. Volumetric reductions in ASPD-PP were most significant in midline cortical areas involved in the processing of self-referential information and self-reflection (i.e., dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate/precuneus) and recognizing emotions of others (postcentral gyrus) and could reflect neural correlates of the psychopathic core features of callousness and poor moral judgment. The findings of this first exploratory study therefore may reflect correlates of prominent psychopathological differences between the two criminal offender groups, which have to be replicated in larger samples.

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Acknowledgments

We thank our collaborating partners in the penal institutions Butzow and Waldeck as well as in the forensic hospital Ueckermunde (director: Dipl. med. R. Strohm). Our particular thanks go to the Ministry of Justice Mecklenburg-Vorpommern for their support in the recruitment of participants. We are further very grateful for the training data used to construct the Harvard-Oxford maximum probability atlas, particularly to David Kennedy at the CMA, and also to: Christian Haselgrove, Centre for Morphometric Analysis, Harvard; Bruce Fischl, Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, MGH; Janis Breeze and Jean Frazier, Child and Adolescent Neuropsychiatric Research Program, Cambridge Health Alliance; Larry Seidman and Jill Goldstein, Department of Psychiatry of Harvard Medical School; Barry Kosofsky, Weill Cornell Medical Center. The study was supported by a grant of the German Research Foundation (DFG) to Sabine Herpertz (HE 2660/7-1). Katja Bertsch and Sabine C. Herpertz are members of the Clinical Research Group KFO256 (HE2660/12-1).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of General Psychiatry, Center for Psychosocial Medicine, University of Heidelberg, Vosstrase 4, 69115, Heidelberg, Germany

    Katja Bertsch & Sabine C. Herpertz

  2. Department of General Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Rostock, Rostock, Germany

    Michel Grothe, Christoph Berger & Stefan Teipel

  3. Cluster of Excellence “Languages of Emotion”, Freie Universitat Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Kristin Prehn

  4. Department of Forensic Psychiatry, Psychiatric University Hospital, Zurich, Switzerland

    Knut Vohs

  5. Department of Radiology, University of Rostock, Rostock, Germany

    Karlheinz Hauenstein

  6. Department of Forensic Psychiatry, University of Rostock, Rostock, Germany

    Peter Keiper

  7. Laboratory for Biological and Personality Psychology, Department of Psychology, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany

    Gregor Domes

  8. German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), Rostock, Germany

    Stefan Teipel

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  1. Katja Bertsch
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  2. Michel Grothe
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  3. Kristin Prehn
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  4. Knut Vohs
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  5. Christoph Berger
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  6. Karlheinz Hauenstein
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  7. Peter Keiper
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  8. Gregor Domes
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  9. Stefan Teipel
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  10. Sabine C. Herpertz
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Correspondence to Katja Bertsch.

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Katja Bertsch and Michel Grothe: shared first author-ship.

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Bertsch, K., Grothe, M., Prehn, K. et al. Brain volumes differ between diagnostic groups of violent criminal offenders. Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci 263, 593–606 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00406-013-0391-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00406-013-0391-6

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