Psychopathy and aggression: when paralimbic dysfunction leads to violence

Psychopaths can be alarmingly violent, both in the frequency with which they engage in violence and the gratuitous extent of their violent acts. Indeed, one principal utility of the clinical construct of psychopathy is in predicting future violent behavior in criminal offenders. Aggression is a complex construct that intersects psychopathy at many levels. This chapter provides a review of psychopathy as a clinical construct including the most prominent cognitive and neurobiological models, which serve to account for its pathophysiology. We then describe how the brain abnormalities implicated in psychopathy may lead to diverse behavioral outcomes, which can include aggression in its many forms.