Psychopathy is a constellation of personality traits such as callousness, manipulativeness, and impulsivity, and these traits often co-occur with antisocial behavior. Researchers and clinicians have posited that these traits may be associated with impairments in orbitofrontal cortex functioning, but researchers have rarely assessed this using clinical neuropsychological assessments. In a sample of 87 male inmates in a county jail, this study examined the relationship between psychopathic traits and performance on the Mini Social Cognition and Emotional Assessment (Mini-SEA), an assessment of orbitofrontal cortex functioning. Psychopathy scores (total or factor) were not correlated with Mini-SEA performance. Potential reasons for our null findings and study limitations are discussed.
Practitioner points
Psychopathic traits were not associated with performance on a neuropsychological measure assessing orbitofrontal cortex functioning.
Deficits in OFC functioning observed in psychopathy may be different in nature, or less severe, than those observed in patients with frontotemporal dementia, who perform poorly on this measure.