Year: 2026
Type: editorial
Abstract: understanding of the neurobiological and neuropsychological antecedents of offending behaviour, research in this field is continuously evolving. Therefore, this special issue of the Forensic Section of Frontiers in Psychiatry aims to bring together an up-to-date collection of scholarly work in the field, providing academics, practitioners, and policymakers with information about the latest advances in the neurobiology and neuropsychology of offending behaviour. The scope of this special issue is broad, and includes scholarly work pertaining to psychophysiology, facial and emotional recognition, noninvasive brain stimulation, traumatic brain injury, treatment outcomes, and other areas.Using data from a longitudinal twin project involving 1,082 children from Los Angeles (USA) who underwent successive waves of testing, Bertoldi and colleagues (5) examined skin conductance (SC) activation during anticipation of and in response to a noise stressor in a sample of 9-10 year old children in relation to constituent traits of psychopathy as per the triarchic model (e.g., boldness, meanness, disinhibition), both concurrently and at a five-year follow-up, as well as antisocial behavior at the follow-up. The findings revealed reduced SC reactivity in the noise-stressor task at wave 1 (ages 9-10 years) was related to parent-rated boldness both concurrently and prospectively at wave 3 (ages 14-15 years), but not to parent-rated disinhibition or meanness at either wave. Additionally, reduced SC reactivity at wave 1 was associated with both boldness and meanness as well as nonaggressive antisocial behaviour at wave 3 as rated by child participants, whereas parent-rated boldness at wave 1 was predictive of child-reported aggressive behaviour at wave 3. These findings highlight the intricate relationship between low fear (threat sensitivity) and the construct of psychopathy, in particular fearlessness.Hachtel and colleagues examined differences in subjective and neuroendocrine responses to psychosocial stress and their impact on facial emotion recognition (FER) and performance on an arithmetic task in justice-involved individuals with schizophrenia and healthy controls (6). The results showed significant group differences in FER, and a significant increase in the subjective perception of momentary strain relating to psychosocial stress in both groups. Notably, acute psychosocial stress was reported to enhance FER performance in a sub-task related to naming emotions in the patient group. In a separate study, Tiberi and colleagues (7) examined the recognition of dynamic facial expressions of emotion in 112 male participants: forensic inpatients with a history of sexual offenses, forensic inpatients with a history of non-sexual offenses, and community controls, using the Signal Detection Theory indices of sensitivity and response bias, as well as measures related to reaction time, emotion labeling reflection time, task easiness, and easiness reflection time. The results showed that both forensic groups were more likely than the control group to exhibit emotion recognition deficits. Except for surprise which was selected less by those with a history of sexual offending, deficits were found in all emotions rather thanas in previous studiesfor particular ones, such as anger or disgust. Interestingly, despite poorer performance, both forensic groups rated the task as easier compared to the control group. Together, the findings of these studies highlight the importance of developing therapeutic interventions aimed at enhancing stress resilience and emotion recognition in justice-involved individuals.Traumatic brain injury featured in two contributions to this special issue. In a cross-sectional study involving a sample of 286 adult male prisoners in Scotland, McMillan and colleagues (8) found severe head injury (SHI) in 245/286 (86%) and repeated head injury in 151/245 (62%).They also found that SHI was significantly associated with disability, problematic drug or alcohol use, clinical anxiety, and clinical depression, but not cognitive test outcomes.Additionally, those with SHI had higher rates of arrests, charges, and convictions and at younger ages, as well as violent and property offences than those without SHI. In a separate study in New Zealand, Theadom and colleagues (9) used a case control research design involving a large sample of 6,606 individuals with mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) and 15,771 matched trauma controls. The results revealed that 10 years post injury, people experiencing a single mTBI had significantly higher numbers of violent charges and convictions but not other, non-violent charges and convictions. Subgroup analysis showed that those with a history of prior mTBIs had significantly higher numbers of violent charges and violent convictions. For those having experienced multiple mTBI the link with number of violent criminal convictions and charges was stronger, suggesting a cumulative effect. Importantly, these findings were only significant for men, not for women. Together, the findings of these studies highlight the association between traumatic brain injury and many undesirable outcomes including disability, psychopathology, and offending behaviours, especially violence. Furthermore, a case report by Karcher and colleagues (10) involving a young man with behavioural variant of frontotemporal dementia, signifies the impact of brain psychopathology on behavioural changes and the challenges inherent in conducting forensic evaluations in people with major neurocognitive disorder of frontotemporal type. Impulsivity, a tendency to act rashly and without forethought, and its correlates were the subject of two studies in this special issue. Hoffmann and Völlm (11) examined the association between neuropsychological deficits, in areas of attention, executive function, and social-emotional cognition, and impulsivity and criminal history in a sample of 30 male patients with substance use disorders at a forensic psychiatry clinic in Germany.. The results showed that individuals with substance use disorders displayed significantly higher levels of impulsivity, as measured using the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11), than the general population. They also showed significant deficits in attention, psychomotor speed, and executive functions as measured using the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB). The results also showed that although there was a modest correlation between impulsivity and cognitive performance, extensive criminal histories correlated with poorer cognitive performance, particularly in tasks requiring planning and problem-solving. These findings highlight the nuances inherent in the relationship between cognitive deficits, impulsivity, and criminal history, and the need for tailored assessments and rehabilitation strategies to enhance outcomes for justice-involved people with substance use disorder.Khalifa and colleagues (12) reported on the findings of a systematic review and meta-analysis to synthesise the literature on the use of combined cognitive training and NIBS to modulate impulsivity and its subdomains (motor, delay discounting, reflection). A synthesis of findings from four randomised controlled studies involving the use of combined cognitive training and tDCS in 127 subjects with substance use disorders, obesity, and Parkinson's disease revealed that combined cognitive training and tDCS had no statistically significant effects on motor impulsivity as measured using the Stop Signal Task, Go/No Go, and a delay discounting task.
Source: Frontiers in Psychiatry
Authors: Najat R. Khalifa, Birgit A. Völlm
Institutions: Queen's University, Universitätsmedizin Rostock
Language: English
Subfield: Clinical Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,801
OpenAlex ID: W7124911245