Ethics

KENT KIEHL

Psychopathy and substance abuse are severe, co-morbid clinical disorders associated with significant civil and criminal disruption. Significant strides have been made in understanding how substance abuse and psychopathy predict institutional behavior, criminal recidivism, and treatment outcome. However, little is understood in terms of the neural systems associated with these disorders and how they interact - which limits treatment efforts designed to remediate risk factors associated with relapse to substance abuse and criminal behavior.

One complicating factor is that clinical research with incarcerated populations is hampered by the limited availability of noninvasive imaging systems. The Mind Mobile Imaging System was designed to help address this issue. In the first two years of deployment, the Mind Mobile Imaging system has been used to collect more than 1000 brain imaging sessions with incarcerated populations. This body of research has led to important discoveries of regarding the neural systems associated with psychopathy and substance abuse. These results significantly advance our understanding of psychopathy and substance abuse and may lead directly to novel cognitive behavioral treatment programs designed to remediate risk factors associated with these clinical conditions.