ANTISOCIAL PERSONALITY DISORDER
APD (Antisocial Personality Disorder) is a DSM-5 diagnosis assigned to individuals who habitually and pervasively disregard or violate the rights and considerations of others without remorse. People with Antisocial Personality Disorder may be habitual criminals, or engage in behavior which would be grounds for criminal arrest and prosecution, or they may engage in behaviors which skirt the edges of the law, or manipulate and hurt others in non-criminal ways which are widely regarded as unethical, immoral, irresponsible, or in violation of social norms and expectations. Those with APD often possess an impaired moral conscience and make decisions driven purely by their own desires without considering the needs or negative effects of their actions on others. Impulsive and criminal behavior is common. The terms psychopathy or sociopathy are also used, in some contexts synonymously, in others, sociopath is differentiated from a psychopath, in that a sociopathy is rooted in environmental causes, while psychopathy is genetically based.
HISTORY
The school of thinking that allowed us to understand ASPD was developed much before ASPD was defined. In 1806 the "Treatise on Insanity" by Philippe Pinel noted that many of his patients has impulsive and destructive behavior, however, they had full mental capability and were aware of their tendencies. He was the first to note this in a non-derogatory sense, and tried to understand what we today known as ASPD. This was a new school of thinking at the time, and faced much criticism for trying to justify criminal actions with disease. Nonetheless, a more scientific approach was eventually adopted, and ASPD and it's symptoms were studied more objectively (History of the Antisocial Personality Disorder - up to 20th Century.).
At first ASPD was known as Antisocial personality disturbance, and was first defined in the DSM in 1952. Historically it had always associated with criminal offence, due to the close relation seen between the two. It wasn't until the DSM-II that a diagnosis of ASPD could be justified based on criminal and legal offences. In 1980, the term was changed to Antisocial personality disorder, and its attributes were defined based on the Feighner Criteria but there was still confusion as to the overlapping attributes of ASPD and Psychopathy. However, this was cleared up over time and it was realized that there were more observable similarities in personality characteristics and less in behavioral manifestations between the two. The most recent definition of ASPD is defined in the D.
CAUSES
Genetic factors and environment factors, such as child abuse, are believe to contribute to the development of this condition. People with an antisocial or alcohol parent are increased risk. Far more men than women are affected.
Fire setting and cruelty to animals during childhood are linked to the development of antisocial personality.
Neural Causes
Most studies have concentrated mainly on the ventromedial cortex because case reports of prefrontal brain injuries are associated with the development of antisocial behavior. The ventromedial cortex is associated with the ability to learn to inhibit a behavior that does not give positive feedback. Dysfunction in this part of the brain can cause one to exhibit the behavior associated with ASPD.
In addition, the amygdala may have a potential role in emotional responses relating to the fear motivated learning. Problems with the amygdala functions early on may result in ASPD behaviors and are a core component in the Violence Inhibition Mechanism deficit.
Symptoms & Diagnostic Criteria for Antisocial personality Disorder
ICD-10
The WHO's International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, tenth edition (ICD-10), has a diagnosis called dissocial personality disorder
