Association Between Traumatic Brain Injury and Psychopathic Traits Among Justice-Involved Adolescents.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a global public health problem and is highly prevalent among justice-involved populations. Pediatric TBI is linked with long-term negative outcomes and is correlated with substance use, criminal behavior, psychiatric disorders, and disruptions in neurocognition. These same TBI correlates are evident among youth with psychopathic traits. Given ongoing neurobiological and social development in adolescence, understanding the link between psychopathic traits and TBI in justice-involved youth is critical. A sample of 263 male adolescents were recruited from a maximum-security juvenile justice facility. Using a structural equation modeling (SEM) framework, measurement invariance of psychopathic traits (TBI ±) was tested, and psychopathy scores were accounted for in terms of TBI variables (severity, age of first TBI, total number), participant's age, IQ, substance use, and internalizing psychopathology. There was evidence of strong invariance across TBI status and those with TBI had higher affective and impulsive lifestyle psychopathic traits than adolescents without TBI. The SEM indicated that TBI severity was associated with lower IQ scores, which in turn were associated with increased lifestyle/antisocial (Factor 2) psychopathic traits. Total number of TBIs was associated with higher substance use, which was associated with both increased interpersonal/affective (Factor 1) and Factor 2 psychopathic traits. These TBI variables also had indirect associations with psychopathic traits through IQ and substance use. The findings indicate that TBI is associated with psychopathic traits and suggest that disturbances in cognition and substance use may be treatment targets for youth with TBI and psychopathic traits.

Striatal brain volume linked to severity of substance use in high-risk incarcerated youth.

Substance use disorders among juveniles are a major public health concern and are often intertwined with other psychosocial risk factors including antisocial behavior. Identifying etiological risks and mechanisms promoting substance use disorders remains a high priority for informing more focused interventions in high-risk populations. The present study examined brain gray matter structure in relation to substance use severity among n = 152 high-risk, incarcerated boys (aged 14-20). Substance use severity was positively associated with gray matter volume across several frontal/striatal brain regions including amygdala, pallidum, putamen, insula, and orbitofrontal cortex. Effects were apparent when using voxel-based-morphometric analysis, as well as in whole-brain, data-driven, network-based approaches (source-based morphometry). These findings support the hypothesis that elevated gray matter volume in striatal reward circuits may be an endogenous marker for vulnerability to severe substance use behaviors among youth.

Clarifying Relations Between Core Features of Psychopathy and Substance (Mis)use: A Replication and Extension in Two Large Independent Samples.

Two studies examined the consistency of associations between specific components of psychopathy and two indices of drug use: (a) abstinence and (b) severity (i.e., counts) of lifetime substance use disorder (SUD) symptoms. Participants were 418 male county jail inmates in Illinois (Study One) and 354 male state prison inmates in New Mexico (Study Two). Across samples, lifestyle and antisocial trait ratings were associated with a reduced likelihood of abstinence from most substances. Lifestyle traits were also uniquely associated with severity of substance dependence ratings. Consistent with prior research, interpersonal traits were uniquely related to cocaine indices in both samples. Furthermore, analyses revealed negative associations between the affective features of psychopathy and alcohol dependence in one sample (Study Two), and illicit substance use across samples. These findings demonstrate the robustness of the associations between the interpersonal and affective features of psychopathy and specific aspects of substance (mis)use.

Clarifying the relationship between mental illness and recidivism using machine learning: A retrospective study.

OBJECTIVE: There is currently inconclusive evidence regarding the relationship between recidivism and mental illness. This retrospective study aimed to use rigorous machine learning methods to understand the unique predictive utility of mental illness for recidivism in a general population (i.e.; not only those with mental illness) prison sample in the United States. METHOD: Participants were adult men (n = 322) and women (n = 72) who were recruited from three prisons in the Midwest region of the United States. Three model comparisons using Bayesian correlated t-tests were conducted to understand the incremental predictive utility of mental illness, substance use, and crime and demographic variables for recidivism prediction. Three classification statistical algorithms were considered while evaluating model configurations for the t-tests: elastic net logistic regression (GLMnet), k-nearest neighbors (KNN), and random forests (RF). RESULTS: Rates of substance use disorders were particularly high in our sample (86.29%). Mental illness variables and substance use variables did not add predictive utility for recidivism prediction over and above crime and demographic variables. Exploratory analyses comparing the crime and demographic, substance use, and mental illness feature sets to null models found that only the crime and demographics model had an increased likelihood of improving recidivism prediction accuracy. CONCLUSIONS: Despite not finding a direct relationship between mental illness and recidivism, treatment of mental illness in incarcerated populations is still essential due to the high rates of mental illnesses, the legal imperative, the possibility of decreasing institutional disciplinary burden, the opportunity to increase the effectiveness of rehabilitation programs in prison, and the potential to improve meaningful outcomes beyond recidivism following release.

Psychopathy Scores Predict Recidivism in High-risk Youth: A Five-year Follow-up Study.

Psychopathic traits have been associated with rearrest in adolescents involved in the criminal legal system. Much of the prior work has focused on White samples, short follow-up windows, and relatively low-risk youth. The current study aimed to evaluate the utility of the Hare Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL:YV) for predicting general and violent felony recidivism in a large sample of high-risk, predominantly Hispanic/Latino, male adolescents (n = 254) with a five-year follow-up period. Results indicated higher PCL:YV scores and lower full-scale estimated IQ scores were significantly associated with a shorter time to felony and violent felony rearrest. These effects generalized to Hispanic/Latino adolescents (n = 193)-a group that faces disproportionate risk of being detained or committed to juvenile correctional facilities in the U.S. These results suggest that expert-rated measures of psychopathic traits and IQ are reliable predictors of subsequent felony and violent felony rearrest among high-risk male adolescents.

Examining the Association between Psychopathic Traits and Fearlessness among Maximum-Security Incarcerated Male Adolescents.

Studies have reported positive associations between youth psychopathy scores and measures of 'fearlessness'. However, prior studies modified fearlessness items to be age appropriate, shifting from assessing hypothetical, extreme forms of physical risk-taking (e.g., flying an airplane) to normative risk-taking (e.g., riding bicycles downhill). We hypothesize that associations between youth psychopathy scores and alternative forms of sensation seeking (i.e., Disinhibition) have been conflated under a false fearlessness label. We tested this hypothesis among incarcerated male adolescents, investigating whether youth psychopathy scores were significantly associated with two different forms of sensation seeking: Disinhibition and Thrill and Adventure Seeking (TAS). Youth psychopathic traits were assessed using the Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL:YV), Antisocial Process Screening Device (APSD), Child Psychopathy Scale (CPS), Inventory of Callous and Unemotional Traits (ICU), and Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory (YPI). Disinhibition and fearlessness (i.e., TAS) were assessed using an unmodified version of the Zuckerman Sensation Seeking Scales (SSS). Consistent with hypotheses, youth psychopathy scores were associated with higher Disinhibition and lower TAS scores. Our results contribute to a growing body of literature suggesting that psychopathic traits, including among adolescents, are not concomitant with physical risk-taking and descriptions of psychopathy including fearlessness distort a precise understanding of psychopathy's core features.