How High Levels of Callous-Unemotional Traits Worsen Conduct Disorder

Low amygdala response to fear, callous-emotional traits, and proactive aggression are interconnected.

Adolescents with conduct disorder (CD) have poor long-term prognosis (NEJM JW Psychiatry Oct 15 2012), and treatment response is poor on teacher reports, an ecologically valid measure (NEJM JW Psychiatry Mar 27 2014).

To better understand how much of this grim prognosis can be attributed to the subgroup of CD patients who also have callous-unemotional (CU) traits, researchers conducted an imaging study among children ages 10 to 17 years. The 30 CD children (14 girls) with a range of CU traits and 16 non-CD control children (6 girls) underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while identifying the gender of fearful, angry, and neutral faces (an implicit facial-recognition task).

Overall, amygdala activity did not differ between the CD and…

Reviewing Author

Barbara Geller, MD

Disclosures

Nothing to disclose

Barbara Geller, MD

Disclosures

Nothing to disclose

How High Levels of Callous-Unemotional Traits Worsen Conduct Disorder

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Reviewing Author