Lori Lacasse

University of Southern California | USC · Department of Psychology

We examined white matter volumes in four prefrontal subregions using structural magnetic resonance imaging in 10 pathological liars, 14 antisocial controls, and 20 normal controls. Liars showed a relatively widespread increase in white matter (23-36%) in orbitofrontal, middle and inferior, but not superior, frontal gyri compared with antisocial and...

Studies have shown increased bilateral activation in the prefrontal cortex when normal individuals lie, but there have been no structural imaging studies of deceitful individuals. To assess whether deceitful individuals show structural abnormalities in prefrontal grey and white matter volume. Prefrontal grey and white matter volumes were assessed u...

Although studies of neurologic patients have suggested that prefrontal structural impairments may predispose to sociopathy, it is unknown whether there is a relationship between psychopathy and prefrontal volume in individuals from the community and whether any prefrontal structural impairment is specific to "unsuccessful" (caught) psychopaths as o...

Structural and functional hippocampal abnormalities have been previously reported in institutionalized psychopathic and aggressive populations. This study assessed whether prior findings of a right greater than left (R > L) functional asymmetry in caught violent offenders generalize to the structural domain in unsuccessful, caught psychopaths. Left...

Psychopathic antisocial individuals have previously been characterized by abnormal interhemispheric processing and callosal functioning, but there have been no studies on the structural characteristics of the corpus callosum in this group. To assess whether (1) psychopathic individuals with antisocial personality disorder show structural and functi...

Structural prefrontal deficits have been reported in patients with schizophrenia, but it is unclear if they are also found in patients with schizophrenia spectrum personality disorders. The hypothesis that a spectrum group will be characterized by prefrontal structural deficits was tested by assessing prefrontal gray and white volumes using magneti...

Research suggests that those with antisocial tendencies are larger than controls, but studies have not assessed this association in antisocial personality disorder (APD) or its hypothesized sub-types (i.e. adolescence-limited, late-onset). Height, weight, body mass index, bulk, and psychosocial adversity were assessed in 44 controls, nine adolescen...

This study evaluates electroencephalography (EEG) and positron emission tomography (PET) in the same subjects. Fourteen murderers were assessed by using both PET (while they were performing the continuous performance task) and EEG during a resting state. EEG revealed significant increases in slow-wave activity in the temporal , but not frontal, lob...

A significant gap in the psychopathy literature is the lack of studies comparing "successful," nonconvicted psychopaths with "unsuccessful," convicted psychopaths. This study tested the hypothesis that successful psychopaths show increased autonomic stress reactivity and better neuropsychological function compared with unsuccessful psychopaths. A t...

This study uses functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to address two important gaps in our knowledge of brain functioning and violence: (1) What are the brain correlates of adults in the community who have suffered severe physical abuse early in life and who go on to perpetrate serious violence in adulthood? (2) What characterizes those who...

This study evaluates electroencephalography (EEG) and positron emission tomography (PET) in the same subjects. Fourteen murderers were assessed by using both PET (while they were performing the continuous performance task) and EEG during a resting state. EEG revealed significant increases in slow-wave activity in the temporal, but not frontal, lobe...

Major damage to gray and white matter in the prefrontal cortex and autonomic deficits have been found to result in pseudopsychopathic personality in patients with neurological disorders, but it is not known whether people with antisocial personality disorder (APD) in the community who do not have discernable brain trauma also have subtle prefrontal...

There appear to be no brain imaging studies investigating which brain mechanisms subserve affective, impulsive violence versus planned, predatory violence. It was hypothesized that affectively violent offenders would have lower prefrontal activity, higher subcortical activity, and reduced prefrontal/subcortical ratios relative to controls, while pr...

Murderers pleading not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI) are thought to have brain dysfunction, but there have been no previous studies reporting direct measures of both cortical and subcortical brain functioning in this specific group. Positron emission tomography brain imaging using a continuous performance challenge task was conducted on 41 mu...

Positron emission tomography using [18F]deoxyglucose (FDG) as a marker of regional brain metabolism was used to investigate the neural substrate of stuttering. Four patients with severe developmental stuttering were studied while reading aloud to another person (stuttering condition) and while reading aloud in unison with someone else (non-stutteri...