Properties of resting state functional connectivity associated with integrated combined subscales of Dark Triad

The neurobiological properties of the human brain associated with separate negative personality traits such as narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism, known as a Dark Triad (DT), have been extensively studied. However, their combinatorial properties have remained understudied in neuroimaging studies. To fill this gap, we performed a functional connectivity (FC) investigation of resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) for 129 healthy participants divided into two groups based on their profiles derived from the Dirty Dozen Dark Triad test using a clustering approach of k-means.

The Variance Ratio Criterion was used to validate the optimal number of clusters. The seed-based analysis used regions of interest defined by the decrease in gray matter volume taken from a previous study. Individuals with Medium-to-High levels of Dark Triad (DT) prominence, compared to those with Low-to-Medium levels of DT, showed decreased functional connectivity between nodes of brain networks involved in emotion regulation, self-reference, and empathy.

At the same time, high DT individuals demonstrated increased FC between regions involved in cognitive control and visual processing. Taken together, our findings suggest a specific and complex reconfiguration of large-scale brain networks in individuals with high DT traits rather than a generalized disruption of functional connectivity. The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

This study was performed within the state assignment of the Ministry of Education and Science of Russian Federation (theme number AAAA-A19-122041500046-5). Bechtereva Institute of Human Brain Russian Academy of Science, Saint-Petersburg, Russia Artem Myznikov, Alexander Korotkov, Maya Zheltyakova, Ruslan Masharipov, Denis Cherednichenko, Mikhail Didur & Maxim Kireev Saint Petersburg State University, Saint Petersburg, Russia The authors declare no competing interests. Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. Myznikov, A., Korotkov, A., Zheltyakova, M. et al.