Frontal-lobe Executive Function and Disinhibitory Personality in Male Inmates with and without Antisocial Personality Disorder

• Main Authors: Peleus H. S. Lui, 呂宏曉
• Other Authors: Huei-Chen Ko
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2000
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/74606011824187650127

碩士 === 國立成功大學 === 行為醫學研究所 === 88 === Objectives: This study was designed to examine the executive function of frontal lobe and disinhibitory personality in male inmates with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) diagnosed using DSM-Ⅳ criteria, those without ASPD, and community male controls, and to investigate the relationship between disinhibition and the deficit of executive function in the frontal lobe under controlling the variables of age, intelligence, education, brain damage, institutionalization, and psychosis. Method: First, we used Chinese version of personality questionnaire as a screening test to select cases with and without antisocial personality disorders. And then those with mental retardation and organic mental disorders were excluded by Raven‘s Color Progressive Matrices(CPM), Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), and Luria-Nebraska Neuropsychological Screening Test. Second, we performed the diagnostic interview to all the subjects using MSADS-L to obtain their DSM-Ⅳ diagnoses. Finally, we collected 158 inmates, including 78 cases with ASPD and 80 cases without ASPD. Moreover, we recruited 41 normal subjects from community by the advertisement on the local newspaper as controls. All subjects were administered the WCST, TMT, Stroop Test, and Sensation Seeking Scale. We used ANCOVA to analyse the data to exclude statistically the interference of the age. Results: First, we find there were significant intergroup differences on perseverative responses, perseverative errors, the percent of perseverative errors, the factor score of prseveration, and the score of disinhibition among three subject groups. Post hoc multiple comparisons showed that perseverative responses, perseverative errors, the percent of perseverative errors, and the factor score of perseveration in the non-ASPD group were higher than those in normal control. However, no significant differences were found between the ASPD and non-ASPD groups, or between the ASPD and normal control groups. On the other index scores of TMT and Stroop test, we did not find significant differences among three subject groups. Secondly, we found the score of disinhibition in the ASPD group was significantly higher than that in the non-ASPD group, and the score in the non-ASPD group was significantly higher than that in the normal control group. Thirdly, we found significant correlation between disinhibition and the severity of antisocial behavior in adulthood and conduct problems in childhood range from 0.38 to 0.49. Finally, according to the score of disinhibition, we divided all subjcets into three group, the high disinhibition, the median disinhibition, and the low disinhibition. We examined the performance of executive function of frontal lobe in these three groups. There were no significant differences in the index for executive function of frontal lobe found among these three groups. Conclusion: We found that the inmates, either in ASPD or non-ASPD group, showed higher tendency of disinhibition. Moreover, the results revealed that the non-ASPD inmates had higher perseverativon score than did the normal control group on WCST, suggesting that inmates with non-ASPD may be insensitive to the wrong message. The hypothesis needs further investigation.