Psychopathic and autistic traits differentially influence the neural mechanisms of social cognition from communication signals

This study investigated how psychopathic and autistic traits differentially influence the neural mechanisms of social cognition, focusing on the processing of social communication sounds. The researchers assessed psychopathy subtypes, discrimination of social communication sounds, and neural overlap with autistic traits. Using fMRI data from 113 participants, they found a phenotypic overlap between secondary psychopathy and autistic traits. Primary psychopathy showed neural deficits in voice processing nodes and social cognition brain systems, including the basal ganglia. Secondary psychopathy revealed impairments in social mirroring and mentalizing, along with deficits in auditory sensory processing. High autistic traits were associated with neural deviations in dorsal auditory processing streams. The findings highlight differential deficits in social cognition of voice signals across psychopathy subtypes and their distinct neural correlates compared to autistic traits.

Christine L. Skjegstad, Caitlyn Trevor, Huw Swanborough, Claudia Roswandowitz, Andreas Mokros, Elmar Habermeyer, Sascha Frühholz