Neural explanations

• There may be neural differences in the brains of criminals and non-criminals. For example, APD is associated with a lack of empathy and is suffered by many convicted criminals
• Less activity in prefrontal cortex = less emotional regulation
• Raine et al. found an 11% reduction in the volume of grey matter in the prefrontal cortex of people with APD compared to controls.
• The prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain that regulates emotional behaviour
• Keysers found that only when criminals were asked to empathise did they show an empathy reaction (controlled by mirror neurons in the brain). This suggests APD individuals do experience empathy, but may have a neural 'switch' that turns on and off- in a normally functioning brain, the switch is always on
• Mirror neurons (empathy) may not always be on