Researchers using MRI have found that people who steal, bully and lie throughout their lives may have smaller brains.
The MRI scans suggested 45-year-olds who had shown antisocial behaviour from childhood had reduced surface area and a thinner cortex in parts of the brain previously linked to such behaviour.
But it is unclear if this was inherited or due to factors such as substance abuse, low IQ or poor mental health.
The researchers scanned nearly 700 volunteers they had studied from birth.
The 70 were divided into three groups, those who:
were not persistently antisocial
only behaved this way when they were adolescents
continued to act this way throughout their lives
They found the 80 people in the last group, which included people who had committed violent crimes, had significant structural differences in their brains.
The authors said their findings - published in Lancet Psychiatry - provided the first robust evidence to suggest people who offended throughout their lives had underlying neuropsychological differences.
