Elsevier

Biological Psychology

Volume 82, Issue 3, December 2009, Pages 199-210
Biological Psychology

Review article
P3 event-related potential impairments in antisocial and psychopathic individuals: A meta-analysis

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2009.06.006Get rights and content

Abstract

Prior findings on P3 event-related potential deficits in antisocial populations are mixed and it has been suggested that these abnormalities may not apply to psychopaths. A meta-analysis of 38 studies (total N = 2616) was conducted to investigate the relationship of P3 measures to antisocial behavior. Reduced P3 amplitudes (d = 0.252, p < .001) and longer P3 latencies (d = 0.130, p = .019) were significantly associated with antisocial behavior across all electrode sites, and when using both normal and non-normal control groups. A significant moderating effect of electrode site indicated longer latencies at Fz but not Pz. Compared to non-psychopathic offenders, psychopathic offenders showed P3 amplitudes impairments in standard oddball tasks, but not other tasks. Findings suggest that reduced P3 amplitudes and prolonged P3 latencies may reflect inefficient deployment of neural resources in processing cognitive task-relevant information in individuals characterized with generic antisocial behavior (i.e., aggression, antisocial personality disorder, conduct disorder/oppositional-defiant disorder, and psychopathy), whereas this association in psychopaths may be moderated by the type of tasks.

Section snippets

Literature searches

Studies were identified using three methods. First, PsycInfo (1887–2007), MEDLINE (1966–2007), and Web of Science (1900–2007) databases were searched using the following key words: P300, P3, late positive component, late positive complex, event-related potential (ERP), evoked potential (EP), brain potential, electroencephalograph (EEG) and cross-referenced with the following: aggression, violence, psychopathy, sociopathy, conduct disorder, conduct problems, antisocial, oppositional, child abuse

Overall effect sizes

Individual effect sizes (d), their 95% confidence interval (CI), and p-value for P3 amplitude and latency are presented in Table 3. For amplitude, a significant mean effect of 0.252 (CI = 0.186–0.318, p < .001) was obtained, indicating that antisocial individuals have significantly smaller P3 amplitudes than controls. For latency a significant effect size of 0.130 (CI = 0.021–0.239, p = .019) was observed, indicating longer P3 latencies in antisocial individuals than in controls. There was significant

Discussion

The main findings from this meta-analysis are that antisocial behavior in general is associated with both reduced P3 amplitudes (d = 0.252, CI = 0.186–0.318, p < .001) and longer latencies (d = 0.130, CI = 0.021–0.239, p = .019). An important caveat is that these findings were less in evidence for psychopaths. In particular, psychopaths failed to show amplitude decrements for more complex tasks that diverged from the standard oddball paradigm and failed to show any latency effects.

It is worth noting that

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Lance Bauer, Kent Kiehl, and Gillian Munro for kindly providing helpful information for this meta-analysis. This research was supported by a grant to the second author from NICHD (1 RO1 HD42259).

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