di Giacomo E, Santorelli M, Pessina R, Rucco D, Placenti V, Aliberti F, Colmegna F, Clerici M. Child abuse and psychopathy: Interplay, gender differences and biological correlates. World J Psychiatr 2021; 11(12): 1167-1176 [PMID: 35070768 DOI: 10.5498/wjp.v11.i12.1167]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Ester di Giacomo, MD, PhD, Academic Research, School of Medicine and Surgery, University of Milano Bicocca, Via Cadore 48, Monza 20900, Italy. ester.digiacomo@unimib.it
Research Domain of This Article
Psychiatry
Article-Type of This Article
Evidence Review
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Psychiatr. Dec 19, 2021; 11(12): 1167-1176 Published online Dec 19, 2021. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v11.i12.1167
Child abuse and psychopathy: Interplay, gender differences and biological correlates
Ester di Giacomo, Mario Santorelli, Rodolfo Pessina, Daniele Rucco, Valeria Placenti, Francesca Aliberti, Fabrizia Colmegna, Massimo Clerici
Ester di Giacomo, Massimo Clerici, School of Medicine and Surgery, University of Milano Bicocca, Monza 20900, Italy
Ester di Giacomo, Fabrizia Colmegna, Massimo Clerici, Department of Psychiatry, ASST Monza, Monza 20090, Italy
Mario Santorelli, Rodolfo Pessina, Francesca Aliberti, School of Medicine and Surgery, Psychiatric Residency Training Program, University of Milano Bicocca, Monza 20900, Italy
Daniele Rucco, Department of Psychology, Linguistics and Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Milano Bicocca, Monza 20900, Italy
Valeria Placenti, Department of Psychiatric Residency Training Program, University of Genova, Genova 16126, Italy
Massimo Clerici, Department of Medicine and Surgery, University of Milano-Bicocca, Monza 20900, Italy
Author contributions: Santorelli M and di Giacomo E wrote this manuscript; Rucco D, Colmegna C, Pessina R, Placenti V, Aliberti F and Clerici M collected data; All authors analyzed papers and approved the final version of the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: No conflict of interest to disclose.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Ester di Giacomo, MD, PhD, Academic Research, School of Medicine and Surgery, University of Milano Bicocca, Via Cadore 48, Monza 20900, Italy. ester.digiacomo@unimib.it
Received: February 25, 2021 Peer-review started: February 25, 2021 First decision: May 13, 2021 Revised: May 27, 2021 Accepted: November 18, 2021 Article in press: November 18, 2021 Published online: December 19, 2021
Abstract
Child abuse is an important source of mental and physical adverse consequences for victims, their family, and their community. The impact of violence during childhood on the development of the victim is a very sensitive theme. Other than internalizing symptoms, it is interesting to analyze the possibility that a victim may assume the role of persecutor. With this aim, we evaluate Literature and examine the interplay among different types of child abuse (emotional neglect, emotional abuse, physical neglect, physical abuse and sexual abuse) and the development of psychopathy. We consider the role of post-traumatic stress disorder and that of personal environment as potential mediators between abuse and psychopathy. Furthermore, an in-depth analysis on possible differences due to the victim's gender is performed. Finally, analysis focused on genetic variants, such as the polymorphism of 5HTT and MAO-A, or a biological alteration, like the difference in daily cortisol levels that could be related to the development of psychopathy after a trauma.
Core Tip: Childhood trauma and psychopathy are strictly related; emotional abuse, emotional neglect and physical abuse show stronger association with the development of psychopathy. Even if sexual abuse is more frequent in females, most researches did not find a significant correlation between psychopathy and sexual abuse in both genders. Furthermore, trauma is the hallmark of secondary psychopathy causing, in a fragile mind, the uprising of mental illness.
