Citing several passages from the article, “Narcissists’ Lack of Empathy Detected in Brain Scans,” in LiveScience:
“Researchers used magnetic resonance imaging to scan the brains of 34 people, including 17 individuals who suffer from [Narcissistic Personality Disorder] and found that pathological narcissists have less gray matter in a part of the cerebral cortex called the left anterior insula. Gray matter is primarily composed of neuron cell bodies and non-neuron brain cells that provide nutrients and energy to neurons, rather than sending and receiving information…. The left anterior insula region of the brain, which is thought to be involved with cognitive functioning and the regulation of emotion, has also been tied to the generation of compassion and empathy.”
In Neuroscience, Mesulam and Pandya published, “Insular interconnections with the amygdala in the rhesus monkey (July 1m 1981)” finding that the “monkeys revealed widespread reciprocal connections between the insular cortex and almost all subnuclei of the amygdaloid complex [and]… the anterior insula project[ed] to the anterior amygdaloid area as well as the medial, the cortical, the accessory basal magnocellular, the medial basal, and the lateral amygdaloid nuclei.”
In other words, the amygdala features prominently in understanding the neural landscape of the narcissist. “[T]he extended amygdala, named the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) is involved in anxiety and stress” according to Li, Pleil, Stamatakis, Busan, Vong, Lowell, Stuber and Kash’s publication entitled, “Presynaptic inhibition of gamma-aminobutyric acid release in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis by kappa opioid receptor signaling.”
Further, “[t]he amygdala has been associated with many diseases, mainly neuropsychiatric. Many studies showed its effects on depression” according to Ruiz, Del Ángel, Olguín, and Silva’s article, “Neuroprogression: the hidden mechanism of depression” published in Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment.
Considering that “The origin of the amygdaloid body or complex called the amygdala is traced to populations of diencephalic and telencephalic cells that form the floor of the lateral ventricle about three weeks after conception” according to Müller and O’Rahilly’s Journal of Anatomy publication, “[t]he amygdaloid complex and the medial and lateral ventricular eminences[are] in staged human embryos.”
The amygdala’s crucial presence in post conception development of the human brain is akin to the early galaxies that sprung from the big bang. Healing or “curing” a narcissist is like time traveling through the universe to surgically cut open the first stars. Unless you have a full command of the melanin-dark matter-dark energy bridge, it will not happen especially in the pigment recessive population.
Many therapists for this reason recommend disengaging from narcissists. Unlike alcoholism, addiction, or criminal actions, there is no cure for narcissism as it exists in the mind of the beholder; deep space. Avoidance, confrontation, surrender or escape are the only paths out of the the boiling frog pot that is narcissism.