ABSTRACT
Practitioners in forensic psychiatry stand to gain tremendously from an empirical understanding of the initiation, maintenance, and potential desistance from criminality. Neurobiological crime research (i.e., neurocriminology) has contributed extensively to criminological study for over 100 years (i.e., Lombroso 1876) and has oered a unique understanding of the etiological mechanisms underlying antisocial behavior. Neuroimaging (the application of technologies and techniques that generate visual representations of brain structure and functioning in living persons), one of the branches of neurocriminology (and the forensic neurosciences), has been an eective methodology in identifying structural and functional decits in frontal, temporal, and subcortical regions in antisocial children and adults-ndings that are largely supported by neurological studies of brain trauma in antisocial populations, and congruent with neuropsychological investigations revealing verbal, spatial, and executive dysfunction in antisocial adults and children. Findings from neuroimaging research have recently begun to impact criminal justice systems in various arenas, including applications in lie detection and judicial processes; and may enhance forensic psychological assessment and inform policies and procedures regarding the identication, management, and treatment of various types of individuals in forensic psychiatric settings.
