Background: Nowadays, the assessment of psychopathy relies on semistructured interviews plus file reviews. In order to improve the predictive validity of psychopathy at the individual level, tools that are not based on the rating of signs and symptoms are in great need. Sampling and Methods: The present study was conducted in a representative sample of 204 Spanish sentenced inmates. These inmates have served at least 6 months of their sentence at the Pereiro de Aguiar (Ourense, Spain) penitentiary. Psychopathy signs and symptoms were scored through interview and file review. The Implicit Association Test (IAT) and heart rate variability (HRV) experiments were also conducted. The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) was performed as a control measure. Results: Spectral HRV indices were able to detect psychopathic inmates at a significant level, while IAT experiments and the IGT could not discriminate them. HRV indices showed a more significant difference when assessing the affective-interpersonal dimensions of psychopathy. Conclusions: An HRV experiment is better than IAT in order to detect psychopathy in a representative sample of Spanish inmates.

BACKGROUND: Premature ventricular contractions (PVCs) are cardiac abnormalities that may occur in subjects with/without cardiovascular disorder. Detection is usually performed from electrocardiograms (ECGs); heart activity for a long period of time m

Nowadays, numerous mobile applications capable of measuring the Heart Rate (HR) are continuously being launched. However, these tools do not allow to record and label the acquired HR signals while users are doing activities such as practising sports or viewing images. They do not allow to perform simultaneous HR acquisition and real-time HRV analysis, either. VARSE is an app for Android mobile devices capable of acquiring and labelling HR signals and of performing real-time HRV analysis. VARSE was developed for Android devices. It includes functionalities to acquire HR signals from any Bluetooth device that implements the Heart Rate Profile specification (such as a chest strap), while labelling segments of the HR data in different situations. Not only can these signals be stored, but also time and frequency HRV analyses can be carried out over them. The application is distributed under the MIT license [1], and it is also available to be installed via Google Play [2]. Functionality, ease-of-use and friendliness of VARSE were evaluated employing an User Experience Questionnaire (UEQ). Its reliability was proven by comparative studies against other existing acquisition (gVARVI) or HRV analysis (RHRV) software. high values were obtained for all the dimensions evaluated in the UEQ, proving the quality of the application, as well as its ease-of-use and efficiency. Both HR signal acquisition and HRV analysis yielded results similar to the ones obtained using other applications. VARSE is a tool with complete functionality, that can be easily downloaded or installed on Android mobile devices. It can be used by anyone who wishes to record HR signals while performing different activities, and also by the medical scientific community to perform real-time HRV analyses easily. Future versions will improve its capabilities and allow its integration with other open source applications.