In this new study from Jean Decety (one of the preeminent scholars of empathy), he and his research team examined the ability of psychopaths (or those who score highly on the PCL-R) to experience empathy for others’ pain.

When the most highly psychopathic participants imagined pain to themselves, their brains showed a typical neural response within the regions involved in empathy for pain, including the anterior insula, the anterior midcingulate cortex, somatosensory cortex, and the right amygdala. The increase in brain activity in these regions was unusually pronounced, suggesting that psychopathic people are sensitive to the thought of of their own pain.

But when participants imagined pain to others, these regions failed to become active in highly psychopathic subjects. The psychopaths – this is important – showed an increased response in the ventral striatum, an area known to be involved in pleasure, when imagining others in pain.

And it seems, according to a psychological researcher I am currently working with, apparently the disorders of narcissism and psychopathy seems to occur at much higher rates in doctors and lawyers.

I am not surprised from the behavior I see in large law firms and in the courtroom.

Maybe right below “In God we Trust” they need to have a poster “Got Psychopathy?”

I think the ARDC needs a “Got Psychopathy?” poster too for all they do.