Childhood precursors to psychopathy

Because psychopathy is associated with a more sinister course of antisocial behavior among criminal offenders, identifying childhood precursors of psychopathy has been a significant interest of research. Conduct disorder has been identified as a risk factor for later antisocial behavior in adulthood, but conduct disorder is a heterogenous disorder that affects children with widely divergent outcomes. Children with callous-unemotional traits have been identified as a subgroup that seems to be of a higher likelihood of demonstrating psychopathy in adulthood. Significant neurocognitive, neurobiological, behavioral, and neuroanatomic differences have been found between children with conduct disorder who have callous-unemotional traits and those who do not. These differences between the two groups also extend to differences in patterns of treatment response as well.