Evidence Review
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
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
Processing time: 292 Days and 21.6 Hours
Core Tip

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.