User:Finereach/Psychopathy

Psychopathy
Social cognition

Differential diagnosis: associated and overlapping conditions
Psychopaths may also have the following other conditions although, in contrast to APD, comorbidity among psychopaths is generally found to be low.


 * Substance abuse has been associated with psychopathy, particularly Factor 2 (anti-social behaviour), but not Factor 1 (emotional) scores of the PCL-R.
 * Conduct disorder and ADHD have both been associated with psychopathy. This may be explained by disruption to dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, an area associated with functions affected by all three disorders.
 * Anxiety may be associated positively with Factor 2 (anti-social behaviour) but inversely with (i.e. decreases in) Factor 1 (emotional) scores on the PCL-R.
 * Depression is inversely associated with psychopathy.
 * Posttraumatic Stress Disorder - Some observers claim that psychopathy can be associated with PTSD.
 * Schizophrenia - although violence may be associated with schizophrenia, there is no conclusive evidence for a link between psychopathy and schizophrenia.
 * Personality Disorder - there is some evidence of an association between APD and other Personality disorders (e.g. Histrionic Personality Disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Borderline Personality Disorder . Evidence for a link with psychopathy is more tentative.

It has been suggested that psychopathy may be comorbid with several other diagnoses, however limited work on comorbidity has been carried out. This may be because of difficulties in using inpatient groups from certain institutions to assess comorbidity, owing to the likelihood of some bias in sample selection. Furthermore, it has been suggested that comorbidity may be more reflective of categories and diagnostic criteria in the DSM-IV than in the underlying aetiologically separate conditions.

=References=