[Organic personality disorder: conceptual review and research strategies]

The historical review of "psychiatric personality disorders" reveals the lack of convergence of those disorders with the organic personality disorder (OPD). Only the psychopathy concept has been used as a psychopathological phenotype for one of the groups of OPD, the so-called "pseudopsychopaths". These patients have been described from the beginning of the XXth century under the heading of "frontal lobe syndrome". It was only with the development of the psychiatric nosologies, towards the middle of the XXth century, that the term "organic personality disorder" started to be used. The accumulation of knowledge about the different prefrontal areas and the development of neuropsychological models that try to explain social behavior have opened new ways of understanding this syndrome. The orbitofrontal cortex has been identified as one of the key structures in behavioral and emotional regulation. Recognition of emotions in voices and faces, empathy, appreciation of humor, tasks that show "theory of mind" are some of the dimensions included in the examination of the non-cognitive functions of the prefrontal cortex