Violent psycho paths can show empathy, says study

Hannibal Lecter can probably feel for his victims, but only if you ask him.

A brain-imaging study of 18 violent, psychopathic criminals in the Netherlands, the largest such study undertaken, suggests they can summon empathy when prompted.

The report, published in the current issue of the journal Brain, showed that empathic circuits that are unconsciously activated in the brains of normal people may be dormant or switched off in psychopaths - not absent, as commonly thought. Those circuits, the study showed, can be activated after psychopaths are prompted to see a situation from someone else's point of view.

"They do have empathy; it's just that it's not always on," said Christian Keysers of the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, lead author of the study.

Neuroscientist Keysers and his team were given access to offenders who committed violent crimes, such as rape and murder, but who were found not responsible due to a psychopathic diagnosis. The offenders are housed in forensic psychiatric facilities, which are obligated to make them available for clinical study.

Each of the diagnosed psychopaths was connected to a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine while he watched video segments showing two hands approaching each other and either caressing, hitting, pushing away or touching the other in a neutral fashion. They were not told what the experiment was about.