It’s estimated that some 1% of the global population display some signs of psychopathy — a mental state that is often associated with an anti-social behaviour disorder.
Synonymous with names such as the serial killer Ted Bundy, there have been lots of studies on psychopaths and the traits they commonly display in their everyday lives.
While the disorder has been made famous due to its correlation with criminal behaviour, other people who show signs of psychopathy can go on to live relatively normal lives.
But to this day, the underlying reasons behind what makes a psychopath are still not fully understood and it’s thought to be a very complex disorder.
A new study exploring psychopaths has taken this research further to try and understand how connections in people’s brains relate to psychopathic traits and outward behaviours.
Published in the European Journal of Neuroscience and conducted by researchers in China, the scientists looked at the brains of 82 people to conclude that psychopathy appears to be linked to unusual connections among different parts of the brain.
Looking into the brain scans and neuroimaging data of the patients, they then identified the people’s psychopathic traits by looking into disorders such as narcissism, lack of empathy and manipulative tendencies.
Here’s what you need to know.
Signs of psychopathy
Psychologists have agreed that there are certain traits which people display if they are a psychopath. In some cases, these traits don’t necessarily make someone a psychopath, but that’s why more research is required to understand how exactly this leads to certain personality disorders.
According to the British Psychological Society, a number of traits have cropped up across various studies on psychopathy. While in some cases these are debated, they most commonly include:
- Low vulnerability
- Low self-consciousness
- Low anxiousness
- Fearlessness
- Boldness
- Assertiveness
- Dominance
- Excitement-seeking
- Callousness
- Manipulativeness
- Dishonest
- Arrogance
- Cruelty
Over the years, there have been countless other studies that suggest traits like impulsivity and a high threshold for pain are also related to psychopathy.
Psychopathy isn’t diagnosed as a stand-alone disorder in the UK, but if you suspect you may be different, or if the way you think causes problems in your daily life, you should consider speaking to a healthcare professional to understand your condition better and get support and treatment.
What the new study suggests
The 2025 study sheds more light on what may lead to psychopathic behaviours in some people.
Based on their research, experts concluded that “disruptions in structural connectivity across multiple brain networks” may lead to psychopathic traits becoming more prominent in some people.
The study reported that there was a mix of both positive networks and negative networks in the brain that may contribute to such behaviours, with the two main areas centring on emotion processing networks and attention modulation networks.
“These pathways offer critical insights into the etiology of psychopathy and highlight how abnormal structural connectivity may bridge psychopathic traits with real-world externalizing behaviors,” the report said.
It added: “These findings suggest that alterations in structural connectivity play a significant role in psychopathy and may underlie the externalizing behaviors observed in individuals with the disorder.”
