JournalofAbnormalPsychology Copyright2005bytheAmericanPsychologicalAssociation 2005,Vol.114,No.1,38–49 0021-843X/05/$12.00 DOI:10.1037/0021-843X.114.1.38 Neurocognitive Impairments in Boys on the Life-Course Persistent Antisocial Path Adrian Raine Terrie E. Moffitt and Avshalom Caspi UniversityofSouthernCalifornia King’sCollegeandtheUniversityofWisconsin—Madison Rolf Loeber and Magda Stouthamer-Loeber Don Lynam UniversityofPittsburgh UniversityofKentucky This study addresses 5 unresolved issues in the neuropsychology of antisocial behavior using a communitysampleof325schoolboysinwhomneurocognitivemeasureswereassessedatage16–17 years.Antisocialbehaviormeasurescollectedfromage7–17yearswereclusteranalyzedandproduced 4 groups: control, childhood-limited, adolescent-limited, and life-course persistent. Those on the life- coursepersistentpathandalsoonthechildhood-limitedpathwereparticularlyimpairedonspatialand memory functions. Impairments were independent of abuse, psychosocial adversity, head injury, and hyperactivity. Findings provide some support for the life-course persistent versus adolescent-limited theory of antisocial behavior and suggest that (a) neurocognitive impairments are profound and not artifactualand(b)childhood-limitedantisocialsmaynotbefreeoflong-lastingfunctionalimpairment. Thegrowingneuropsychologicalliteratureonviolentandanti- 3. Do neuropsychological impairments characterize life- social behavior is confirming beyond a reasonable doubt what course persistent (LCP) but not adolescent-limited (AL) some have argued for a long time—that antisocial and violent individuals? offendershaveneuropsychologicalimpairments(Henry&Moffitt, 1997;Ishikawa&Raine,2002;Moffitt,1990b;Morgan&Lilien- 4. Do neurocognitive impairments also characterize child- feld, 2000; Raine, 1993). Such research is important at both hood-limited (CL) antisocial individuals, or are these theoretical, treatment, and prevention levels. Neurocognitive im- individuals protected from later antisocial behavior by pairmentsmaybeakeyroutethroughwhichgeneticandpsycho- showingparticularlygoodcognitivefunctioning? socialinfluencesonantisocialbehaviorfindexpression,andearly 5. Are impairments in antisocial groups attributable to co- prevention or remediation of these impairments could, in theory, help reduce levels of antisocial behavior. Yet, despite recent em- morbid attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), piricalprogressonneurocognitionandantisocialbehavior,atleast abuse,socialadversity,orheadinjury? fiveissuesremaininquestion: Do Offenders Show Spatial in Addition to Verbal 1. Do offenders show spatial in addition to verbal Impairments? impairments? 2. Aretheyimpairedonmemoryfunctions? The classic view of cognitive functioning in antisocial popula- tions is that spatial functions are either much less impaired than verbalfunctions,ortheyarenotimpairedatall(e.g.,Quay,1987; Editor’sNote. PaulJ.Frickservedastheactioneditorforthisarticle.— Wilson & Herrnstein, 1985). Such conclusions have been based TBB largelyoninstitutionalizedoffenders,andrecentcommunitystud- ies are beginning to question the assumption of the primacy of verbalimpairmentsandantisocialbehavior.Forexample,several AdrianRaine,DepartmentofPsychology,UniversityofSouthernCal- recent studies found that early spatial impairments characterize ifornia; Terrie E. Moffitt and Avshalom Caspi, Institute of Psychiatry, King’sCollege,London,UnitedKingdom,andtheUniversityofWiscon- youngantisocialchildren,sometimesinadditiontoverbalimpair- sin—Madison;RolfLoeberandMagdaStouthamer-Loeber,WesternPsy- ments(e.g.,Dietz,Lavigne,Atrend,&Rosenbaum,1997;Speltzet chiatricInstituteandClinic,UniversityofPittsburgh;DonLynam,Depart- al., 1999) and sometimes in the absence of verbal impairments mentofPsychology,UniversityofKentucky. (e.g.,Raineetal.,2002).Inadultpsychopaths,onestudyfoundno This research was conducted with the support of an Independent Sci- evidence for verbal impairments but did find strong impairments entist Award (K02 MH01114-01) and a grant from National Institute of onBlockDesign,aspatialtask(Smith,Arnett,&Newman,1992). MentalHealth(RO1MH51091-01A1)toAdrianRaine.WethankCynthia A more recent study found spatial but not verbal impairments in Mayer,KarenMizelle,LisaPaich,AlainaWinters,ChuckWhitesell,and adult psychopaths (Raine et al., 2003). Similarly, psychopathic- MarciZeraforhelpindatacollection. like children with callous-unemotional traits show an absence of CorrespondenceconcerningthisarticleshouldbeaddressedtoAdrian Raine,DepartmentofPsychology,UniversityofSouthernCalifornia,Los verbal impairments but tend to have poor spatial ability (Loney, Angeles,CA90089-1061.E-mail:[email protected] Frick,Ellis,&McCoy,1998). 38 NEUROCOGNITIVEIMPAIRMENTSINANTISOCIALBOYS 39 Theoretically,findingsinchildrenhavebeeninterpretedonthe Buchsbaum, & LaCasse, 1997; Raine et al., 2004), it could be basis of an early starter spatial impairment model of antisocial predictedthatantisocialindividualswouldshowmemoryimpair- behavior (Raine, Yaralian, Reynolds, Venables, & Mednick, ments.Inadditiontothequestionofwhethermemoryimpairments 2002), which suggests that early visuospatial (right hemisphere) in general reliably characterize offenders, few previous studies impairments can predispose an individual to persistent antisocial have systematically explored verbal and spatial impairments in behaviorbyinterferingwithearlyattachmentandemotionrecog- memorytaskstoseewhetherthisclassicVerbalIQ(cid:1)Performance nition and regulation. Regional cerebral blood flow research on IQprofileextendstothememorydomain. infants and young children has shown that the right (not left) hemisphere is dominant from 1–3 years (Chiron et al., 1997), Do Neuropsychological Impairments Characterize LCP suggesting that right hemisphere dominance regulates nonverbal but Not AL Offenders? orienting, attention, arousal, and affective facial expression and recognitionthatareinevolutionarytermsessentialforsurvivalin One influential theory of offending has argued for a critical the preverbal infant (Saugstad, 1998). Compromising of these distinctionbetweenthosewhoseantisocialbehaviorstartsinchild- systemswouldbeexpectedtobothimpairtheinfant’sorientingto, hoodandpersistsintoadolescenceandearlyadulthoodandthose andrecognitionof,itsmother’sfacialexpressionand,inturn,limit whose antisocial behavior is limited to the adolescent period theinfant’sreciprocalexpressiveresponsetothemother.Intrans- (Moffitt,1993).ThisLCPtheoryarguesthatearlyneurocognitive actionalterms,thiscouldelicitmorenegativeparentingfromthe and psychosocial impairments in part cause persistent antisocial mother, with the combined effects leading to disruption of early behavior,whereas,incontrast,ALoffendersdonotevidencethese mother–infant bonding and attachment, which in turn could pre- impairments(Moffitt,1993;Moffitt,Caspi,Rutter,&Silva,2001). dispose the child to affectionless, psychopathic-like behavior Several studies have confirmed that LCP offenders in particular (Raine, 1993). At a later age, right hemisphere dysfunction may haveneurocognitiveimpairments(Donnellan,Ge,&Wenk,2000; contributetosocial-information-processingdeficitsthatpredispose Fergusson, Horwood, & Nagin, 2000; Kratzer & Hodgins, 1999; an individual to antisocial behavior (Dodge, 1991) as well as Moffitt & Caspi, 2001; Nagin, Farrington, & Moffitt, 1995; reducedabilitytorecognizethenegativefacialemotionsofanger Piquero,2001),althoughonestudyhasfailedtoobservethiseffect andfear(Adolphs,Damasio,Tranel,&Damasio,1996;Borod,St. (Aguilar,Sroufe,Egeland,&Carlson,2000). Clair,Koff,&Alpert,1990).Theinabilityofthegrowingchildto accuratelyprocessandrecognizesignalsofnegativeaffectsuchas Do Neurocognitive Impairments Also Characterize CL angerandfearinaprotagonistduringafractioussocialencounter Antisocial Individuals? couldcontributetoinappropriaterespondingandescalationintoan aggressiveresponse.Thus,earlyvisuospatialdeficitsmayinterfere CL antisocial individuals are a fascinating but understudied with mother–infant bonding and may reflect right hemisphere group. These individuals are just as severely antisocial in child- dysfunctionthatdisruptsemotionprocessingandregulation,which hood as the LCP group, but their antisocial behavior is signifi- inturncontributestolife-courseantisocialandaggressivebehav- cantlyattenuatedinadolescence(Lahey,Waldman,&McBurnett, ior. Nevertheless, additional testing is required to further test the 1999;Moffitt,Caspi,Harrington,&Milne,2002).Itisconceivable hypothesis that antisocial individuals are characterized by poor that this group is protected from antisocial behavior during ado- spatialability. lescence by virtue of having particularly good neurocognitive functioning, as high IQ has been shown to protect against adult Are Offenders Impaired on Memory Functions? crime (Kandel, Mednick, Kirkegaard-Sorensen, & Hutchings, 1988).Asecond,competingprediction,however,isthatthisgroup Neuropsychologicalreviewsofantisocialbehaviorhavefocused willshowthesameneurocognitiveimpairmentsastheLCPgroup almostexclusivelyonexecutiveandverbalfunctions,withlittleor (Moffitt, 2002). Although this group was initially labeled as the no mention of memory functions (Henry & Moffitt, 1997; Fish- “recovery” group (Moffitt, Caspi, Dickson, Silva, & Stanton, bein, 2000; Ishikawa & Raine, 2002; Moffitt, 1990b; Nigg & 1996), later analyses showed this label to be overly optimistic, Huang-Pollock,2002;Raine,1993).Thismaypartlybeduetothe becauseinadulthoodtheywentontoshowbothlow-leveloffend- factthatstudiesfailtofindmemoryimpairmentsinmaleantisocial ing and multiple psychological functional impairments (Moffitt, groups(e.g.,Barkley,Edwards,Laneri,Fletcher,&Metevia,2001; 2002;Moffittetal.,2002).Yetathirdpossibilityissuggestedby Famularo, Fenton, Kinscherff, & Barnum, 1992; Hare, Frazelle, the only prior published work on neurocognitive functioning and Bus,&Jutai,1980;Bergvall,Wessely,Forsman,&Hansen,2001). CLantisocialbehavior.Thisprospectivestudyfoundage3andage There have even been suggestions that psychopathic offenders in 11 cognitive functioning in the CL group to be intermediate particular have superior memories (Andrew, 1982). In contrast, between that of nonantisocial control participants and the LCP several recent studies do find memory impairments in antisocial group (Raine et al., 2002). Do CL antisocial children share the and violent groups (Brickman, McManus, Grapentine, & Alessi, neurocognitive and psychosocial impairments found in LCP of- 1984; R. A. Cohen, Rosenbaum, Kane, Warnken, & Benjamin, fenders,orarethereimportantdifferencesthatcouldgivecluesto 1999; Dolan & Park, 2002; Moffitt & Caspi, 2001; Seguin, theirabilitytoresistfurtherantisocialbehavior? Arsenault, Boulerice, Harden, & Tremblay, 2002; Sigurdsson, Gudjonsson,&Peersen,2001;Teichner,Golden,VanHasselt,& Are Impairments an Artifact of Comorbid Conditions? Peterson,2001;Vermeiren,DeClippele,Schwab-Stone,Ruchkin, &Deboutte,2002).Becausethehippocampussubservesmemory The fifth unresolved issue concerns whether neurocognitive and because structural and functional hippocampal impairments impairmentsinantisocialgroupsareanartifactofcomorbidcon- have been found in violent and psychopathic offenders (Raine, ditions. Lynam, Moffit, and Stouthamer-Loeber (1993) demon- 40 RAINEETAL. strated that the delinquency–low-IQ relationship was not ac- Of the original sample of 503 individuals, 335 individuals (66.6%) countedforbytestmotivation,schoolfailure,andself-controlina participatedinasubstudyonthebiosocialbasesofaggressiveandviolent communitysampleof13-year-oldboys,butotherconfoundsneed behavior.The10-yearattritionof168individuals(33.4%)forthesubstudy to be ruled out. Although some have argued that neurocognitive brokedownasfollows:31livingoutofthearea;20injail;45refusedthe larger Pittsburgh, PA, Youth Study; 35 refused the biosocial study; 27 impairments characterize antisocial behavior after controlling for repeatedlycancelledappointments;and10failedtodecideonparticipation. ADHD(e.g.,Seguin,Boulerice,Harden,Tremblay,&Pihl,1999; Participantswerecomparedwithnonparticipantsoninitialdatacollectedat Seguinetal.,2002;Sergeant,Geurts,&Oosterlaan,2002),others age 7 to assess for bias. Odds ratios, confidence intervals (CI), and argue that antisocial boys lacking ADHD do not show neuropsy- statistical significance were computed as follows: socioeconomic status chologicalimpairments(e.g.,Moffitt,1990a;Speltzetal.,1999). (SES; odds ratio (cid:2) 0.99, CI (cid:2) 0.65–1.49, p (cid:2) .94), ethnicity (African A related question concerns whether environmental influences Americanvs.White:oddsratio(cid:2)1.15,CI(cid:2)0.79–1.67,p(cid:2).46),initial suchasabuse,psychosocialadversity,andhistoryofheadinjuries risk status (odds ratio (cid:2) 1.09, CI (cid:2) 0.75–1.58, p (cid:2) .64), delinquency canaccountforneurocognitiveimpairmentsinantisocialchildren. seriousness(noorminordelinquencyvs.moderateorseriousdelinquency: Although there are strong genetic contributions to both brain oddsratio(cid:2)0.83,CI(cid:2)0.55–1.25,p(cid:2).37),andviolenceseriousness(no structure and function (de Geus, Wright, Martin, & Boomsma, violencevs.gangfightingandattacks:oddsratio(cid:2)0.87,CI(cid:2)0.56–1.36, p(cid:2).55).Asalloddsratioswerenonsignificant,therewasnoevidenceof 2001; Posthuma et al., 2002), twin studies have demonstrated selectiveattritionasbasedonearlydata.The335participantshadamean significant environmental influences on cognitive ability (Finkel, age of 16.15 years at the time of testing (SD (cid:2) 0.89), with 41.2% Pedersen, & Harris, 2002). Child abuse, psychosocial adversity, Caucasianand58.8%AfricanAmericanaffiliation.Fullwritteninformed and a history of head injury are all processes that could conceiv- consentwasobtainedfromtheboysandtheirparents,andstudyprotocols ably cause neurocognitive impairments yet are not frequently wereapprovedbytheInstitutionalReviewBoardsatboththeUniversityof examined. For example, although at least one prior study has SouthernCaliforniaandtheUniversityofPittsburgh. shownthatneuropsychologicalimpairmentsinaggressiveboysare independent of family adversity (Seguin, Pihl, Harden, & Trem- Delinquency Seriousness Classification Groups (Age 7–17 blay,1995),fewstudieshaveassessedwhetherincreasedabusein Years) antisocial groups could account for neurocognitive–antisocial re- lationships. Both male and female delinquent populations have Delinquencymeasureswereobtainedfromparents(throughtheuseof been found to have significantly higher rates of trauma exposure anextendedversionoftheChildBehaviorChecklist(CBCL;Achenbach& than control groups (Cauffman, Feldman, Waterman, & Steiner, Edelbrock, 1979), teachers (using an extended version of the Teacher 1998; Steiner, Garcia, & Matthews, 1997), and traumatized pa- ReportForm;Edelbrock&Achenbach,1984),andboys(usingtheSelf- tientshavebeenreportedtohaveneuropsychologicalimpairments, ReportDelinquencyScale;Elliott,Ageton,Huizinga,Knowles,&Canter, particularly those related to hippocampal functioning (Bremner, 1983). Full methodological details of the classification are provided in Loeberetal.’s(1998)work.Assessmentsweretakenevery6monthsfrom 1999; Bremner, Randall, Vermetten, & Staib, 1997). Conse- ages7–11yearsandeveryyearthereafterupto17years.Ateachstage, quently,neurocognitiveimpairmentsinantisocialgroupscouldbe participantswereclassifiedintosixlevelsofdelinquencyseriousnessbased afunctionofabusehistoryorcomorbiditywithADHD. on an extension of the four-stage delinquency seriousness classification The current study attempts to make a partial contribution to (seeLoeberetal.,1998).Mostbehaviorsintheclassificationsystemwere addressingthesegapsintheneurocognitiveliteratureonantisocial represented by more than one question and more than one respondent. behavior using a community sample of boys repeatedly assessed Classificationswerebasedonthemostseriousactreportedbyanyofthe onantisocialbehaviormeasuresfromage7–17years.Neurocog- informants. nitivefunctioningandhistoryofheadinjurywereassessedatage Itemsfromthethreeinformantsourceswereweightedforseriousness 17, whereas environmental factors and ADHD were assessed at usingseverityratingsdevelopedbyWolfgang,Figlio,Tracy,andSinger age 7 years. Because the creation of antisocial groups frequently (2002)andusedtoconstructdelinquencyseriousnesscategoriesforeachof the 14 assessments as follows: no delinquency (scored 0), minor delin- reliesontheuseofcut-offscoresthatcanseemarbitrary,cluster quencyathome(e.g.,stealingfromparents;scored1),minordelinquency analysis was used as a statistical technique to obviate the use of other (e.g., shoplifting; scored 2), moderately serious delinquency (e.g., cut-offs and to assess whether LCP, AL, CL, and nonantisocial gangfighting;scored3),seriousdelinquency(e.g.,cartheft;scored4),and control groups emerge when groupings are not “forced” into this serious-violentdelinquency(e.g.,attacktoseriouslyhurtorkill;scored5). moldbyartificialcut-offsonantisocialmeasures. The mean 1-year test–retest reliability for the classification system was 0.41(p(cid:1).001). Method Participants Neuropsychological Measures (Age 17 Years) Participantsconsistedoftheyoungestofthethreesamplesmakingup Neuropsychologicalmeasureswereinterspersedthroughoutthetestday thePittsburgh,PA,YouthStudy.Fulldetailsofbackgroundcharacteristics inordertohelpavoidfatigueandlackofmotivation.Testorderwasas andinitialparticipantrecruitmentin1987–1988,whenchildren(allmale) follows: Continuous Performance Task, Wisconsin Card Sorting Task were aged 7 years, are given in Loeber, Farrington, Stouthamer-Loeber, (WCST), Verbal Dichotic Listening, Verbal and Visuospatial Memory, andvanKammen’s(1998)work.Briefly,868Grade1boysfrompublic Vocabulary,Information,BlockDesign,andPictureCompletion. schoolsinPittsburgh,PA,wereassessedbycaretakers,teachers,andthe Verbal and spatial IQ. The Vocabulary, Information, Block Design, boysthemselveson21seriousantisocialbehaviors.The250mostantiso- and Picture Completion subtests of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for cialboyswereselectedforfurtherstudy,togetherwith253boysrandomly Children (WISC–III; Wechsler, 1991) were administered according to selectedfromtheremainder,tomakeatotalsampleof503.Assuch,this manualguidelines.TotalIQwasestimatedfromthesumofallfourscales. population-basedcommunitysample,althoughrepresentativeofthechil- An estimate of verbal IQ was made from the sum of Vocabulary and dren in public schools in the city of Pittsburgh, PA, was nevertheless Information,whilespatialIQwasestimatedfromthesumofBlockDesign weightedtowardcontainingmoreantisocialboys. andPictureCompletion. NEUROCOGNITIVEIMPAIRMENTSINANTISOCIALBOYS 41 Verbalmemory. Immediateanddelayedverbalmemorywereassessed sivetrials.Intertrialintervalwassetat6s.Oneachtrial,oneconsonant– usingtheLogicalMemorysubscaleoftheWechslerMemoryScale(Wechs- vowel stimulus was presented to the left ear and a different consonant– ler,1945).Twostorieswerereadtotheparticipant,and,immediatelyafter vowelstimuluswaspresentedtotherightear.Theparticipants’taskinthis eachstory,theparticipantrecalledasmanymemoryunitsorideasofthe experiment was to report verbally the one stimulus they heard. Because storyaspossible.Thirtyminuteslater,theparticipantswereagainaskedto therearesixpossibleresponses(thesixpairsofconsonantsandvowels)for recall the stories. Separate scores were computed for immediate and each trial and because there are two possible correct responses, chance delayedrecallcomponents. performanceonthesetof60trialsis20(33%). Visual-spatial memory. Immediate and delayed visuospatial memory were assessed using the Visual Reproduction subtest of the Wechsler Potential Psychiatric and Psychosocial Confounds (Age Memory Scale (Wechsler, 1945). Four cards with printed designs were 7–17 Years) showntotheparticipantfor5s,afterwhichtheparticipantattemptedto drawthedesignfrommemory.Aftera30-mindelay,theparticipantwas Attentiondeficithyperactivitydisorder(ADHD). AdiagnosisofDSM– againinstructedtoredrawthedesigns.Separatescoreswerecomputedfor III–RADHDwasassessedwhenthechildwasaged7yearsthroughthe immediateanddelayedrecallcomponents. revised Diagnostic Interview for Children—Parent version (DISC–P; Costello,Edelbrock,Kalas,Kessler,&Klaric,1982)administeredtothe Frontal Functioning mother.Tomeetdiagnosticcriteria,individualshadtohavepresentatleast 8outof14behaviors,withatleast6monthsdurationofthedisorder.The Continuous Performance Task (CPT). Version 4.08 of the degraded baserateofADHDinthissampleatthisagewas14.1%.Tohelpensure stimulusversionoftheCPT(Nuechterlein,Parasuraman,&Jiang,1983) standardization of the administration of this structured instrument, we wasadministeredaccordingtotheauthor’sguidelines.Visuallydegraded madesurethatinterviewersweregivenpracticeontheinstrumentinthe numbersrangingfrom0to9wereflashedonacomputerscreen(placed laboratoryandwerethenmonitoredbyasupervisorontheirinitialfield 1mfromtheparticipantinhislineofvision)for40msattherateofone interviews. This instrument has been found to have acceptable levels of per second. The participants’ task was to press a response button on a reliability and validity (Jensen et al., 1995; Shaffer et al., 1996), and Gravisjoystickeverytimetheysawthefigure“0”buttonotrespondtoall supportforthevalidityofparentreportofchildpsychopathologyisgiven other stimuli. Targets had a 0.25 probability of occurrence. After 10 in works by Loeber, Green, Lahey, and Stouthamer-Loeber (1989) and presentations of the target stimulus only, participants were given two Loeber,Green,andLahey(1990). practiceblockswith80trials/block(foratotalof160trials).Thereafter,6 Childabuse. Court-reportedchildabusedata(frombirthto13years) blockswith80trialsineachbock(foratotalof480trials)werepresented, was collected from official records at the Children and Youth Services lasting8min. (CYS)officesofAlleghenyCounty,PA,in1993.Thisinformationcovered Hits,falsealarms,meanreactiontimetohits,andmeanreactiontimes thetimespanfromtheparticipant’sbirthtothetimeofdatacollection(age to false alarms were computed. To reduce the number of errors and the 13years).SubstantiatedmaltreatmentwasdefinedaccordingtotheMal- likelihoodofTypeIerror,thesevariableswerefactoranalyzed.Onlyone treatmentClassificationSystem(Barnett,Manly,&Cicchetti,1993)and principalcomponentaccountingfor61.8%ofthevariancewasextracted coveredallformsofsignificantchildabuse(e.g.,physical,sexual,neglect, withloadingsasfollows:hits(.82),falsealarms((cid:3).64),reactiontimeto emotionalmaltreatment)requiringtheinterventionofChildrenandYouth hits((cid:3).81),andreactiontimetofalsealarms((cid:3).86).Factorscoresfrom Services. thefirstprincipalcomponentwerecalculatedusingtheregressionmethod Psychosocialadversity. Measuresofpsychosocialadversitywerede- to assess CPT performance, with higher scores indicating better perfor- rivedfrominterviewsoftheboy’scaregiverwhenhewasaged7years. mance.Coefficientalphaforthiscompositewas0.88. Nineteen measures were selected that reflect items similar to those con- WCST. AcomputerizedversionoftheWCST(Grant&Berg,1948) tainedinpsychosocialadversityindicesusedpreviouslybyothers(Moffitt, wasadministeredinwhichparticipantssortedapackof64cardsaccording 1990a;Rutter,1978).Fulldescriptionofthesevariablesandtheircoding to color, shape, and number. Visual feedback (right or wrong) was pro- areoutlinedinLoeberetal.’s(1998)work. vided after each card placement. This task reflects abstract reasoning, Because(a)manyofthesecharacteristicsreflectsingleitems,(b)usual cognitiveflexibility,andtheabilitytomaintainandchangeset.Number measuresofreliabilityandvaliditycouldnotbederived,and(c)TypeI correct,numberofperseverativeerrors,numberofnonperseverativeerrors, errorposedaproblem,afactoranalyticapproachwastakentotheestab- number of categories achieved, trials to complete the first category, and lishment of psychosocial adversity constructs using principal-component failuretolearnsetwerecomputed. analysisandanObliminrotation.Missingdataonthesevariablesvaried Factor analysis using principal-component analysis and Varimax rota- from1(0.3%)to45(13.4%)participants.Topreventmajordatalossinthe tionproducedtwofactors.Thefirst(55.0%ofvariance)hadloadingsof factor analysis requiring complete data on all participants, we replaced correctanswers(.88),perseverativeerrors((cid:3).73),nonperseverativeerrors missingvalueswiththevariablemean.Althoughsevenfactorshadeigen- ((cid:3).65),categories(.92),andtrialstocompletefirstcategories((cid:3).72).The values (cid:4) 1, the scree test indicated three factors. Factors 4–7 were second(21.1%variance)hadinconsistentloadingsoffailuretolearnset ill-definedandoftenloadedonlytwoitems,itemswhichwererepresented ((cid:3).96),numbercorrect((cid:3).45),andnonperseverativeerrors(.45).Because inFactors1–3.Consequently,onlythe1stthreefactorswererotatedusing some of these latter loadings were inconsistent (i.e., failure to learn set anOblimincriterion. associatedwithmorecorrect),onlyfactorscoresweresavedfromthefirst Factor 1 (Poverty) was defined by family on welfare (.75), nonintact factor,withhighscoresreflectingbetterWCSTperformance.Coefficient family (.64), bad neighborhood (.62), low SES (.61), few rooms (.53), alphaforthiscompositewas.84. teenage mother (.51), mother poorly educated (.47), and mother unem- Verbal Dichotic Listening. Stimuli consisted of pairs of consonants ployed(.41). and vowels (ba, da, ga, pa, ta, and ka) of 350-ms duration and 85-dB Factor 2 (Parental Psychopathology) was defined by parent anxious/ intensity,whichhadbeensynthesizedtocloselyaligntheirtemporaland depressed(.78),parentalsubstanceabuse(.75),fatherbehaviorproblems spectralcharacteristics(Raine,O’Brien,Smiley,Scerbo,&Chen,1990). (.74),andnonintactfamily(.51) The six consonant–vowel stimuli were paired with each other to form a Factor 3 (Parental Neglect) was defined by bad relationship with pri- totalofl5trialswiththesamepairingsrepeatedonasecondsequenceof marycaregiver(.57),littletimespentwithchild(.55),caretakerdoesnot 15trials.After30trials,earofpresentationwasreversedandthesequence enjoychild(.50),littlepositiveparenting(.50),caretakerdoesnottalkto repeatedtocounterbalanceforanychanneldifferencesontheheadphones, child about activities (.50), few shared family activities (.45), low SES making a total of 60 trials. Pairs were randomized within this 30-trial (.48),pooreducationofmother(.42),poorparentalsupervision(.35),and sequencewiththeprovisothatnostimulusshouldoccuronthreesucces- parentalstress(.34). 42 RAINEETAL. All19variablesloadedononeofthethreefactors,andthedirectionof loadingswereineverycasetheoreticallyconsistent,althoughsimplestruc- turewasnotobtainedas3variablesloadedontwofactors.Inthesecases, thevariablewasdeletedfromthefactoronwhichitloadedleasthighly.All 19variableswereztransformed,andvariablesloadingoneachfactorwere summated in order to operationalize the three factors of psychosocial adversity. Coefficient alphas for each of the three composites were as follows: poverty (.70), parental psychopathology (.69), and parental ne- glect(.56). Head injury. A lifetime history of head injury was assessed in an interviewwiththeparticipantusingastructuredheadinjuryquestionnaire (Raine,Lencz,Bihrle,LaCasse,&Colletti,2000).Thefollowingvariables werecoded:numberofheadinjuriessuffered(fromfalls,trafficaccidents, playing sports, fighting, being attacked), number of times experiencing nausea or vomiting after head injury, number of times knocked uncon- scious, total number of minutes of unconsciousness, hospitalization for headinjury(yes/no),andnumberofdayshospitalized. Statistical Analyses Figure1. Groupmeandelinquencyseriousnessscoresforthefourclus- tersfromages7to17years.AL(cid:2)adolescentlimited;LCP(cid:2)life-course Hierarchicalclusteranalysiswasconductedontheage7–17yeardelin- persistent. quency data for 325 participants. Ward’s method was used to optimize minimumvariancebetweenclustersinconjunctionwithasquaredEuclid- iandistancemeasuretoassesssimilaritybetweenparticipants.Inspection p (cid:1) .0001, (cid:2)2 (cid:2) .061, indicating that groups differed on overall of the dendrogram and fusion coefficients were used to help identify neurocognitivefunctioning. number of clusters (Everitt, 1993). Omnibus multivariate analyses of variance(MANOVAs)wereconductedoneachsetofvariablesandone- Intelligence. AMANOVAperformedonverbalandspatialIQ wayanalysesofvarianceANOVAsonindividualmeasureswerefollowed showedamaingroupeffect(seeTable1).Groupsdifferedsignif- upwithTukey’shonestlysignificantdifferenceteststominimizefamily- icantlyonbothformsofintelligence.Specifically,theLCPgroup wiseerrorratesandtohelpreduceTypeIerror.Forchi-squareanalyses hadlowerverbal(d(cid:2)0.65)andtotal(d(cid:2)0.56)IQsthancontrol conductedonthesixpossiblepairingsacrossthefourparticipantgroupson participantsandadditionallyhadlowerverbalIQscomparedwith anindividualmeasure,aBonferronicorrectionwasapplied((cid:1)(cid:2).0083). ALs (d (cid:2) 0.53). The CL group also scored lower than control EffectsizeswerecomputedusingCohen’sdforttests(J.Cohen,1988)and individualsonallthreesummaryIQmeasures(meand(cid:2)0.44).In (cid:2)2forMANOVAs. contrast, the AL group showed no significant differences com- pared with control participants on any of the three measures. A Results similar pattern of findings was observed for the four intelligence subtests (see Table 1), with the effect for Block Design being Cluster Analysis somewhat stronger than for Picture Completion. In addition, the Inspection of the dendrogram indicated two large clusters (an- LCP group showed significantly impaired functioning on Block tisocialandnonantisocialgroups),aswellasfourclusterswithn Design compared with control participants (d (cid:2) 0.69), in part sizes of 156, 57, 68, and 44. Similarly, inspection of the plot of explainingthenonsignificantreduction(aftercorrectionforfami- fusion coefficients indicated a large jump in values at the two- lywiseerrorrate)inspatialIQ(p(cid:2).023,d(cid:2)0.37)inthisgroup clusterlevelaswellasajumpatthefour-clusterlevel.Antisocial comparedwithcontrolparticipants. behavior data for these four clusters across ages 7–17 years are Memory. Groups differed significantly on verbal and spatial shown in Figure 1. Groups differed significantly on delinquency memory,bothintermsofimmediateanddelayedrecall(seeTable scoresatallages,F(3,321)(cid:4)24.4,p(cid:1).0001.Itcanbeseenthat 1).TheLCPgroupshowedspatial(meand(cid:2)0.73)butnotverbal one group (control participants, n (cid:2) 156) remains stably low on memory impairments compared with control participants, while antisocialbehaviorfromage7to17.Asecondgroup(ontheAL the CL group showed impairments in three of the four measures path, n (cid:2) 68) starts off at exactly the same level as the control (meand(cid:2)0.48)comparedwithcontrolparticipants. participants but progresses to significant levels of antisocial be- Frontal functions. Individual ANOVAs were conducted on haviorbylateadolescence.Athirdgroup(ontheCLpath,n(cid:2)57) theWCSTandCPTbecausetheyreflectdistinctfeaturesoffrontal startsoffwithhighlevelsofantisocialbehavioruptoage11but lobe functions. The ANOVA for the CPT was significant (p (cid:2) thendeclines.Afourthgroup(ontheLCPpath,n(cid:2)44)startsoff .011)whilethatfortheWCSTwasnot(p(cid:2).56).1OntheCPT, high and shows even higher levels of antisocial behavior during the LCP group performed more poorly than control participants lateadolescence.Becauseofthetheoreticalinterestinthecompo- (d(cid:2)0.52,seeTable1).TheCLgroupshowedatrendforpoorer sitionofthesefourclusters,theywereretainedforfurthervalida- tionanalyses. 1Means, standard deviations (in parentheses), and results of one-way analyses of variance for the control participants and childhood-limited, Antisocial Group Differences on Neurocognitive Measures adolescent-limited, and life-course persistent groups on two commonly reportedWCSTindiceswereasfollows:perseverativeerrors,10.8(10.8), An omnibus MANOVA conducted on all neurocognitive vari- 12.5 (7.5), 11.1 (6.0), 12.2 (8.1), F(3, 311) (cid:2) 1.1, p (cid:4) .34; categories ablesproducedasignificantmaingroupeffect,F(24,915)(cid:2)2.46, achieved,2.6(1.3),2.4(1.2),2.4(1.2),2.2(1.2),F(3,311)(cid:2)1.2,p(cid:4).30. NEUROCOGNITIVEIMPAIRMENTSINANTISOCIALBOYS 43 Table1 GroupComparisonsonNeurocognitiveMeasures Childhood Adolescent Life-course Neurocognitive Controls limited limited persistent measure (C;n(cid:2)156) (CL;n(cid:2)57) (AL;n(cid:2)68) (LCP;n(cid:2)44) F dfs p Contrastsa Intelligence Multivariateb 3.4 6,642 .002 Information 9.4 7.7 8.1 7.1 10.4 3,321 .0001 LCP,CL,AL(cid:1)C (3.0) (2.9) (3.0) (2.5) Vocabulary 8.1 6.5 7.2 7.0 4.1 3,321 .007 CL(cid:1)C (2.9) (3.0) (2.8) (4.4) BlockDesign 8.4 6.3 7.3 5.8 8.6 3,321 .0001 LCP,CL(cid:1)C (3.8) (3.4) (3.5) (3.5) Picture 11.5 9.8 10.8 10.5 4.6 3,321 .003 CL(cid:1)C Completion (3.2) (3.0) (3.8) (2.9) VerbalIQ 91.9 85.1 89.4 81.5 6.1 3,321 .0001 LCP(cid:1)C,AL CL(cid:1)C (16.5) (15.9) (15.2) (14.7) SpatialIQ 98.9 90.1 95.4 91.1 3.6 3,321 .013 CL(cid:1)C (21.4) (17.2) (18.9) (18.9) TotalIQ 94.6 86.2 91.3 84.6 5.5 3,321 .001 LCP,CL(cid:1)C (18.5) (16.8) (16.8) (16.5) Memory Multivariate 3.0 12,960 .0001 Verbal:immediate 21.2 17.9 18.2 19.4 4.5 3,321 .004 CL,AL(cid:1)C (7.3) (7.2) (7.8) (6.9) Verbal:delayed 17.5 13.7 15.0 16.4 4.4 3,321 .005 CL(cid:1)C (7.3) (7.3) (7.9) (7.1) Spatial:immediate 34.2 32.4 32.3 30.8 6.9 3,321 .0001 LCP,AL(cid:1)C (4.3) (5.3) (5.9) (4.6) Spatial:delayed 31.1 28.0 28.9 26.8 6.4 3,321 .0001 LCP,CL(cid:1)C (6.1) (7.3) (7.7) (7.2) Frontal WCST .08 (cid:3).01 (cid:3).04 (cid:3).15 0.7 3,311 .56 (1.0) (1.1) (1.0) (0.9) CPT .17 (cid:3).19 (cid:3).03 (cid:3).34 3.7 3,311 .011 LCP(cid:1)C (.97) (1.1) (.93) (1.1) DichoticListening Multivariate 2.5 6,640 .023 Left 31.5 30.3 30.3 29.9 1.8 3,320 .15 (4.9) (5.0) (5.6) (4.3) Right 35.2 32.8 35.6 35.3 3.2 3,320 .023 CL(cid:1)C,AL (5.6) (5.9) (5.8) (4.4) Note. WCST(cid:2)WisconsinCardSortingTask;CPT(cid:2)ContinuousPerformanceTest. aUsingTukey’shonestlysignificantdifferencetest. bOnlyverbalandspatialIQmeasuresareenteredintothemultivariateanalysisofvariance. CPTfunctioningcomparedwithcontrolparticipants(uncorrected higher (2.4-fold) abuse rate than control participants but did not p(cid:2).027,d(cid:2)0.37). differfromtheLCPgroup(p(cid:1).12). Dichoticlistening. TheMANOVAindicatedanoverallgroup Psychosocial adversity. Groups differed significantly on all effectwithrespecttoperformanceontheDichoticListeningTask three measures of psychosocial adversity (see Table 2). LCP (see Table 1). In particular, groups differed on right-ear perfor- offenders had higher levels of poverty (d (cid:2) 0.45) than control mance,withtheCLgroupperformingatsignificantlylowerlevels participants and higher rates of neglect than both control partici- comparedwiththecontrol(d(cid:2)0.42)andAL(d(cid:2)0.47)groups pants (d (cid:2) 0.78) and AL offenders (d (cid:2) 0.46), although rates of (seeTable1). parentalpsychopathologywerenothighinthisgroup.Incontrast, the AL group was not characterized by adversity. The CL group was,however,characterizedbyhigherscoresonallthreefactorsof Antisocial Group Differences on Child Abuse, Adversity, adversitycomparedwithcontrolparticipants(meand(cid:2)0.47)but Head Injury, and ADHD didnotdifferfromtheLCPgrouponanymeasure. Abuse. Groupsdifferedsignificantlyinratesofcourt-recorded History of head injury. The MANOVA was nonsignificant abuse(seeTable2).Specifically,theLCPgrouphadalmostfour (see Table 2), but as head injury was viewed as a potential times the rate of abuse than control participants and were signif- confound,tobeconservative,weneverthelesscomputedunivariate icantly higher (2.7-fold increase) than the AL group who did not FteststoassesswhethertheLCPgroupwouldbecharacterizedby differfromcontrolparticipants.TheCLgrouphadasignificantly more head injuries as well as uncorrected post hoc comparisons. 44 RAINEETAL. Table2 GroupComparisonsonPsychosocial,Abuse,ADHD,andHeadInjuryVariables Childhood Adolescent Life-course Controls limited limited persistent Possibleconfound (C;n(cid:2)156) (CL;n(cid:2)57) (AL;n(cid:2)68) (LCP;n(cid:2)44) F dfs p Contrasts ADHD %withdiagnosis 14.8 28.1 11.8 31.8 (cid:3)2(cid:2)11.9 3 .008 LCP,CL(cid:4)C,AL Childabuse %abused 11.5 28.1 16.2 43.2 (cid:3)2(cid:2)25.0 3 .0001 LCP(cid:4)C,AL CL(cid:4)C Psychosocialadversity Multivariate 5.4 9,963 .0001 Poverty (cid:3)1.65 .15 (cid:3).68 (cid:3).12 9.1 3,321 .002 LCP(cid:4)C (3.5) (3.5) (3.9) (3.1) CL(cid:4)C Parentalpsychopathology (cid:3).39 .60 .31 (cid:3).08 3.2 3,321 .021 CL(cid:4)C (2.0) (2.5) (2.6) (2.1) Neglect (cid:3).96 .54 (cid:3).12 1.7 8.4 3,321 .0001 LCP(cid:4)C,AL (3.2) (3.7) (3.8) (4.2) CL(cid:4)C Headinjury Multivariate 0.9 21,246 .54 No.ofheadinjuries 1.26 1.32 1.36 1.36 0.3 3,321 .83 (2.3) (1.8) (2.4) (2.1) No.ofunconscious 0.37 0.33 0.44 0.70 2.6 3,321 .06 LCP(cid:4)C,CL (0.7) (0.61) (.85) (1.02) No.ofmin.unconscious 5.8 8.9 92.6 48.0 1.2 3,321 .32 (34.2) (29.9) (703.9) (220.0) %hospitalized 38.0 42.0 31.0 43.0 0.8 3,321 .51 (0.49) (0.50) (0.47) (0.50) No.ofdaysinhospital 0.21 2.38 1.40 0.75 1.4 3,321 .26 (0.78) (12.5) (10.9) (2.46) No.ofdisoriented/sick 0.42 0.28 0.16 0.15 0.6 3,321 .59 (2.15) (1.11) (0.53) (0.55) Note. ADHD(cid:2)attention-deficit/hyperactivitydisorder;min.(cid:2)minutes. Ononlyonevariable(numberoftimesknockedunconscious)was In assessing whether psychosocial adversity was a confound, there any evidence that the LCP group had a greater history of aftersimultaneousentryofpoverty,parentalpsychopathology,and headinjuriescomparedwithcontrol(d(cid:2)0.41)andCL(d(cid:2)0.46) neglect as covariates in the MANOVA, we discovered that the groups(seeTable2). maineffectofgroupremainedsignificant,F(24,906)(cid:2)2.04,p(cid:2) ADHD. There was a significant relationship between ADHD .002,(cid:2)2(cid:2).051,indicatingthatgroupdifferencesinneurocogni- and antisocial grouping, (cid:3)2(3) (cid:2) 11.9, p (cid:2) .008; see Table 2). tive functioning were largely independent of psychosocial RatesofADHDweretwiceashighinbothLCP(31.8%)andCL adversity. (28.1%) groups as compared with control (14.8%, p (cid:2) .011 and Because there was some limited evidence that LCP offenders .027, respectively) and AL (11.8%, p (cid:2) .009 and .021, respec- weremorelikelytobeknockedunconsciouscomparedwithcon- tively)groups.Thesecomparisonswereallstatisticallynonsignif- trolparticipantsandtheCLgroup,thisvariablewasenteredasa icant after applying a Bonferroni correction (p (cid:2) .0083; see covariateintheomnibusMANOVAonneurocognitivevariables. Table2). Themaineffectofgroupremainedsignificant,F(18,921)(cid:2)2.8, p(cid:1).0001.2 Influence of Possible Confounds on Delinquency– Neurocognitive Relationships Discussion Because of the higher rates of ADHD in both LCP and CL Resultsofthisstudyprovideinitialanswerstothefivequestions groups, ADHD was entered as a covariate in an omnibus posed above. First, community offenders show spatial as well as MANOVA, with all neurocognitive variables as the dependent verbalimpairments.Second,theyareimpairedonmemoryaswell variablesandwithantisocialgroupingastheindependentvariable. asnonmemorycognitivetasks.Third,LCPoffendersareparticu- Themaingroupeffectremainedsignificant,F(24,909)(cid:2)2.3,p(cid:2) larly impaired on both neurocognitive and psychosocial factors .0001, with (cid:2)2 at .057 being almost unchanged from the prior relative to control participants. Fourth, CL antisocial individuals (ADHD uncorrected) level of .061. Consequently, antisocial– possess neurocognitive impairments. Fifth, impairments are not neurocognitivelinkswereindependentoftheinfluenceofADHD. attributabletoADHD,childabuse,psychosocialadversity,orhead The LCP group also had higher rates of court-recorded abuse than control participants. After entering abuse as a covariate, the maingroupeffectremainedsignificant,F(18,921)(cid:2)2.4,d(cid:2)21, 2Analyseswerererunfortheindividualneurocognitivetestsaftercon- p(cid:2).001,(cid:2)2(cid:2).051. trollingforconfoundsandpairwisecontrastsremainunchanged. NEUROCOGNITIVEIMPAIRMENTSINANTISOCIALBOYS 45 injury.ThesefindingsprovidepartialsupportfortheLCPversus Hollt, & Bogerts, 1999). Consequently, widespread memory im- AL theory of antisocial behavior, indicate that these neurocogni- pairmentsmaybeassociatedwithantisocialbehaviorbecausethey tive impairments are profound and not easily explained away by may be a marker for hippocampal dysfunction, which impairs confoundsandartifacts,andsuggestthatCLantisocialsmaynotbe affectregulationandinhibitoryprocesses;theseprocesses,inturn, freeoflong-lastingfunctionalimpairment. may predispose individuals to antisocial behavior. Furthermore, The fact that group differences arose on spatial in addition to suchmemoryimpairmentinLCPoffenderswouldtheoreticallybe verbal neurocognitive measures questions the strong emphasis in consistentwiththeviewthatdysfunctiontothesepto-hippocampal the literature on verbal impairments in antisocial and delinquent system underlies the response modulation deficits observed in populations.Specifically,groupdifferenceswerefoundforspatial psychopaths (Newman et al., in press). The facts that the hip- IQ, spatial memory, and visuospatial continuous performance. pocampusiscriticallyimportantinmemoryandspatialrepresen- Thesefindingsoncommunityantisocialindividualsareconsistent tationformationandalsothatlife-courseantisocialswerefoundin with other community studies of antisocial children that do find thisstudytohavebothmemoryandspatialimpairmentsraisesthe evidence for spatial impairments (see Raine et al., 2002, for a hypothesisthathippocampalimpairmentmaypredisposeindivid- review). Although both verbal and spatial IQ impairments have ualstolife-course,psychopathicbehavior(Newmanetal.,inpress; been found to characterize persistently antisocial children from Raineetal.,2004). ages 8 to 17 years, these children show spatial, but not verbal, ThefindingthatLCP,butnotAL,offendersshowneurocogni- impairments at age 3 years (Raine et al., 2002). Early spatial tive and psychosocial impairments compared with control partic- impairmentshavebeenhypothesizedtoreflectdisruptioninright ipantsisconsistentwithMoffitt’sLCPtheoryofantisocialbehav- hemisphere affect regulation, which predisposes individuals to ior (Moffitt, 1993; Moffitt, Caspi, Rutter, & Silva, 2001). In persistentantisocialbehaviorbyinterferingwithearlybondingand particular,theLCPgrouphadlowerverbalIQs,moreabuse,more attachment (Raine et al., 2002). The fact that spatial neurocogni- neglect, and nonsignificantly (uncorrected p (cid:2) .009) higher rates tive impairments (both in terms of Block Design and memory ofADHDthantheALgroup.Therewere,however,exceptionsto functions) were found in the present community sample of LCP this general pattern of increased risk factors in the LCP group. individuals provides further support for the potential significance Specifically,theAL,butnotLCP,groupweremoreimpairedthan of spatial impairments as a risk factor for such behavior and control participants on immediate memory. Furthermore, the two encourages their further assessment in future neuropsychological groupsdidnotdiffersignificantlyonspatialIQ,althoughtheeffect studies of antisocial groups. At the same time, the extent of the wasintheexpecteddirection.Theseeffectswouldnotbedirectly spatialimpairmentsintheLCP(meanCohen’sd(cid:2)0.58)andCL predictedbyMoffitt’stheory.Itisconceivablethatwhilemanyin groups (d (cid:2) 0.42) suggests that the impairment is relative rather theALgroupatage17willnotgoontobecomeadultoffenders, than absolute and is moderate in size (J. Cohen, 1988). Because some may well go on to become what have been termed “late- there are stronger motor components in the tasks that most dis- onset” offenders who lack childhood antisocial behavior. The criminatedtheLCPgroupfromcontrolparticipants(d(cid:2)0.77for limitedresearchontheseoffendersshowsthattheypossesssome visualreproduction,d(cid:2)0.69forblockdesign),comparedwitha ofthebiologicalandsocialriskfactorsforadultcrimeshownby reduced motor component in the CPT (d (cid:2) 0.52) and almost no LCPoffenders(Ishikawa,Raine,Lencz,Bihrle,&LaCasse,2001). motorcomponentinPictureCompletion(d(cid:2)0.32),futurestudies Future research studies could usefully test the hypothesis that a couldfurthertestthehypothesisthatvisuomotorabilityispartic- neurocognitively impaired subgroup of AL offenders progress to ularly impaired in the LCP group, as opposed to conceptual, adultoffending. constructional,orspeedcomponentsofspatialability. Neurocognitive impairments in antisocial groups were not at- Memory impairments were also observed in the antisocial tributabletocomorbidADHD,afindingthatprovidessupportfor groups, with spatial memory impairments being in relative terms thenotionthatsuchimpairmentsmaybeofetiologicalsignificance the strongest of all neurocognitive measures. Such memory im- in shaping antisocial behavior rather than being an artifact of the pairments have been traditionally associated with temporal lobe comorbid condition of ADHD. In addition to this psychiatric dysfunction,particularlytomesialtemporallobestructuressuchas variable,severalimportantenvironmentalprocessesthatmightbe the hippocampus. Recent brain-imaging research has uncovered expected to account for the neurocognitive impairments (abuse, evidencethatthehippocampusisbothstructurallyandfunctionally psychosocial adversity, history of head injury) failed to do so, impairedinmurderers(Raineetal.,1997),violentoffenders(Sod- findingsthatareconsistentwithotherresearchonoffenders(Nigg erstrom,Tullberg,Wikkelsoe,Ekholm,&Forsman,2000),violent &Huang-Pollock,2002;Seguinetal.,1995).Becauseneurocog- inpatients (Critchley et al., 2000), alcoholic psychopaths (Laakso nitivefunctioningissignificantlyinfluencedbygeneticprocesses et al., 2001), and unsuccessful psychopaths (Raine et al., 2004), and because genetic processes have been implicated in serious while reduced blood flow in the right temporal cortex has also antisocialbehavior(Rhee&Waldman,2002),thepossibilitythat beenobservedinabusedviolentoffendersduringperformanceof theneurocognitiveimpairmentsaregeneticallymediatedneedsto a working-memory task (Raine et al., 2001). Extensive animal be seriously considered in future research. In contrast, the possi- research has also found that the hippocampus, along with the bility that effects are mediated by important psychosocial influ- amygdala and other subcortical structures, regulates the intensity encesthatwerenotmeasuredinthisstudy(e.g.,impairedmother– of rage and aggression exhibited by cats (Gregg & Siegel, 2001) infantbonding)cannotbediscounted. andthatlesionstotheseptal-hippocampal-frontalsystemresultin OneinterestingfindingfromthisstudyisthattheCLantisocial behavioral disinhibition and a hypersensitivity to immediate re- group was characterized by across-the-board neurocognitive (as ward(seeGorenstein&Newman,1980,forreview).Furthermore, well as psychosocial) impairments. Indeed, they showed signifi- hippocampal lesions applied at birth in rats result in increased cant impairments (compared with control participants) on more aggressive behavior in adulthood (Becker, Grecksch, Bernstein, neurocognitiveteststhantheLCPgroup,despitethefactthatthey 46 RAINEETAL. hadmuchlowerage17antisocialscoresthantheLCPgroup.This toLCPoffending.Follow-uppastage17yearsandintoadulthood finding suggests that neurocognitive impairments may be an im- isneededtoconfirmthattheseindividualsaretrulyLCP,although portant component of the explanation as to why this group is itislikelythatthemajorityoftheLCPgroupwillretaintheirstatus antisocial in the first place. The complimentary question is why into adulthood. Fourth, the neurocognitive battery was not as thisgroupeventuallyresistslaterantisocialbehavior.Ananswerto extensive as that used in some other studies, although it is more this question has so far been elusive (Moffitt et al., 1996, 2002), representative than others in that it includes memory functions. butthepresentstudyprovidesaprovisionalpointer.TheCLgroup ThefactthatspatialimpairmentswerefoundontheWISC,Wechs- was significantly lower (before correction for Type I error) than lerMemoryscale,andCPTsuggeststhatspatialimpairmentsare theLCPgrouponnumberoftimesknockedunconscious.Conse- pervasive, but future studies could use a wider battery of visuo- quently, the absence of head injury in the lives of these children spatialmeasurestoclarifyfurtherthenatureofspatialimpairment mayexplainwhy,despitethefactthattheysharemuchincommon inantisocialgroups.Fifth,because20participantswereinprison with the LCP group, they avoid a negative antisocial outcome in and could not be tested, results cannot be fully generalized to an later life. If this finding can be replicated and extended in future unselectedcommunitysample,andtheseresultsplacelimitsonthe studies,oneimplicationisthatpreventionstudiesthattargethead power to detect effects for the LCP group. Sixth, the measure of injury in at-risk children may become more effective in reducing psychosocialadversitywasbasedonindicatorsatage7yearsand adult offending. Alternatively, future research should address the mayormaynotreflectcontinuedadversityuptoage16.Seventh, possibility,asoutlinedbyMoffittetal.(2002),thatthisgroupdoes althoughwefoundnoevidenceforselectiveattritiononanumber nottrulyresistallformsofantisocialbehavior,thattheyarelater of demographic and antisocial variables, it is not known whether impairedinadultlife,andthattheymaysufferfrominternalizing thesampleisbiasedintermsofneurocognitivevariablesasthese psychopathology. werenottakenatage7years. Perhaps the most salient null result of this study is that no Despitetheselimitations,thecurrentfindingsindicatethatneu- significantgroupdifferenceswerefoundontheWCST,astandard rocognitiveperspectivesareespeciallyapplicabletoLCPoffend- neuropsychological indicator of frontal impairments. The effect ing, that both spatial and memory impairments are salient, that size between the LCP and control groups was (cid:3)0.23 and conse- neurocognitiveimpairmentscannotbeeasilyexplainedbypsychi- quently represents a small effect in the predicted direction. Nev- atricorpsychosocialconfounds,andthat,instead,theymaystem ertheless, this compares with a similar value of (cid:3)0.28 for the fromveryearlyenvironmentalorgeneticinfluences.Becausefew WCST reported by Morgan and Lilienfeld (2000) in a meta- if any neurocognitive studies have assessed antisocial behavior analytic review of frontal functioning and antisocial behavior. developmentally in order to test a developmental theory of sub- Consequently,thesizeoftheeffectobserved,althoughnonsignif- typesofantisocialbehavior,itisfeltthatthecurrentfindingsmake icant, appears to be consistent with the larger literature. On the a nontrivial contribution to the literature on neurocognition and other hand, stronger frontal neurocognitive impairments were in- antisocialbehavior. dicatedintheLCPgroupbytheCPT(d(cid:2)(cid:3)0.51).Thissuggests some limited support for the theoretical perspective that frontal References impairments may be implicated in the etiology of antisocial be- havior (Raine, 2002) but also indicates that there may be some Achenbach,T.M.,&Edelbrock,C.S.(1979).TheChildBehaviorProfile: specificitywithintheprefrontalcortexoftheneurocognitivepre- II.Boysaged12–16andgirlsaged6–11and12–16.JournalofCon- dispositiontoantisocialbehavior.Inparticular,positronemission sultingandClinicalPsychology,47,223–233. tomography,near-infraredspectroscopy,andmagnetoencephalog- Adolphs,R.,Damasio,H.,Tranel,D.,&Damasio,A.R.(1996).Cortical raphy imaging studies have shown that while WCST bilaterally systemsfortherecognitionofemotioninfacialexpressions.Journalof activateswidespreadregionsoftheprefrontalcortex(Fallgatter& Neuroscience,16,7678–7687. Strik,1998;Wang,Kakigi,&Hoshiyama,2001),theCPTshows Aguilar,B.,Sroufe,L.A.,Egeland,B.,&Carlson,E.(2000).Distinguish- a relatively more lateralization pattern of right frontal activation ingtheearly-onset/persistentandadolescence-onsetantisocialbehavior consistent with broader findings of right hemisphere dominance types: From birth to 16 years. Development & Psychopathology, 12, 109–132. forattention(Fallgatter&Strik,2000;Hager,Volz,Gaser,Ment- Andrew, J. M. (1982). Memory and violent crime among delinquents. zel, Kaiser, & Sauer, 1998; Riccio, Reynolds, Lowe, & Moore, CriminalJustice&Behavior,9,364–371. 2002).Assuch,thestrongereffectsfortheCPTthantheWCSTin Barkley, R. 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