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Psychopaths Have Brain Structure Abnormality
mmmscience writes "A group of scientists has identified a structure in the brain of psychopaths that is abnormal when compared with controls. The change is found in the uncinate fasciculus, a bridge of white matter that connects the amygdala (emotion/aggression brain region) and the orbitofrontal cortex (decision making region). Interestingly, the greater the abnormality in the region, the more severe the levels of sociopathy in a subject. The results were published as 'Altered connections on the road to psychopathy' in the journal Molecular Psychiatry. A researcher on the team suggests the finding could have considerable implications in the world of criminal justice, where such scans could one day be presented as evidence in a trial." The study's results have not yet been replicated by other researchers.
Sometimes they occur together, but this is not always the case.
Given the brain's ability to mold itself with use, I wonder whether this abnormality is a contributing factor of the psychopathic behavior, or a result of it?
A much larger study is going to be needed to see if having this deformity is (a) unique to psychopaths, and (b) always present in them. If that's the case, great. A screening can be done early. If not, it sounds like a pretty scary way to lock people up in advance of them doing anything (which itself is a very very bad idea).
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
The summary mentions use of such scans in court cases. Frankly, that worries me a fair bit. Saying to a jury "look, this guy's brain shows that he's likely to kill people, so he's probably the murderer" is worrisome. It is all the more worrisome because of the implied argument that the individual should be locked up anyways. There's also the additional issue that when there are brain differences detected with MRI and similar methods they are often at a large-scale statistical level and there might be a substantial fraction of normal people whose brain structure looks close to that of a psychopath. I can't access the original study, so I can't tell.
This does also bring up the standard issues of free will and such. At minimum, if someone commits heinous crimes due to brain problems it makes it ethically problematic to engage in essentially punitive imprisonment.
There's a hypothesis that CEOs are disproportionately selected for sociopathy. If that is true, particularly in the case of banks (which are too big to fail -- ie: they have a taxpayer sponsored safety net), then we have a vested interest in finding out if the hypothesis is true.
http://www.google.com/search?q=sociopath+executive
Given the lack of remorse, the ease with which they claim entitlement in the face of their own catastrophic failure, and that we have been left holding the tab, it seems that a concrete test like this might be reasonable.
Just a thought.
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It would be interesting if you could fix sociopathy with a knife.
Well, you can but firearms are generally more effective and easier to employ ;)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
A researcher on the team suggests the finding could have considerable implications in the world of criminal justice, where such scans could one day be presented as evidence in a trial.
My response:
"There is a tendency... today to explain human behavior, to remove purpose - motive - from serious consideration. We tend to accept the notion that mechanical, not purposive, causation accounts for the things people do. Joe Sinister is a criminal because his parents beat him or because of a chemical imbalance in his brain or because of a genetic disorder that removed the function we call conscience... These explanations of human behavior may be accurate... but the issue of accuracy is, in fact, quite irrelevant to human societies. A human community that uses mechanical causation to account for human behavior cannot survive, because it cannot hold its members accountable for their behavior. That is, no matter how you account for the origin of a human behavior, a community must continue to judge the perpetrator on the basis of his intent, as near as that intent can be understood (or guessed, or assumed). That is why parents inevitably ask their children the unanswerable question: Why did you do that? Terrible as that question is, it at least puts the responsibility back on the child's head and forces the child to ask himself the question that society absolutely requires him to answer: Why do I do the things I do? And how, by changing my motives, can I change my behavior?... We must believe in motives for human behavior, or we cannot maintain community life."
~ Orson Scott Card, from the Introduction to "Cruel Miracles".
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I'm not a psychiatrist, but I believe you may be thinking of this study and its precursors: Rice, M. (1997). Violent offender research and implications for the criminal justice system. American Psychologist, 52(4), 414-423. At least, a number of sources seem to cite to it for this claim, which is actually very interesting. One explanation was that the therapy served to increase the subjects' sense of self-worth and confidence, which made them even more dangerous. For them, only medication seemed to do any good. If the research the article describes can add more options, that seems to me like a good thing.
Bobb9000 - raised by the wolves,
Oxford education as phrased by the wolves.
Well, you can but firearms are generally more effective and easier to employ ;)
Hey nothing psycho about that response...
They don't show a causal relationship. Changing the structure doesn't necessarily 'fix' it.
And the possibility of non-psychopaths having the structure abnormality, and/or psychopaths not having the abnormality has not been ruled out.
Given our limited understanding of the human brain, it's quite possible there be multiple things that cause psychopathic tendency.
For all we know removing perceived "abnormal" structure could wind up creating an even bigger harm, or worse disorder.
1) Correlation is not causation; this "abnormality" may be an effect of psychopathy
2) Others may have this "abnormality" without manifesting any signs of psychopathy
3) Yes, it would be interesting, but it would be even more interesting if you could fix it with a single pill that contains biologic organisms
When dogs go mad and bite kids, we don't investigate wether they had a bad upbringing, disease, or bad genes. They are put to sleep.
When men do the same, society excuses them on these same grounds? I'm not saying that they should be executed, I'm just wondering why we make that big a distinction between sentient creatures.
If I speed because of my sum biology + experience, then can't it be argued that I really don't have a choice in speeding?
But you do have a choice. There is nothing physically preventing you from acting differently and you logically understand the consequences of your actions, both the harm you cause others, and the punishment you will face. That's all that free will and choice means. If you're biologically inclined to make choices that are bad for you or others, well, so be it; you just have to live with the consequences, which may include incarceration or execution.
Purely from a practical point of view, people who are biologically destined to be sociopaths with a propensity to cause harm to others are exactly the kind of people we need to remove from society. Whether you call that "punishment" or "treatmnet" really doesn't make a big difference.
And if the abnormality is the result of psychopathy, not the cause?
In any case, we are not robots programmed by the structure and chemistry of our brains. My fear is that discoveries such as these will prompt people to start blaming criminal behaviour on physiological features, with brain surgery as the prescribed cure, just as ADD is overused as an excuse for misbehaving children with the result that children are being medicated with potent drugs.
Everyone still has the ability to choose their actions, and for everyone with a disorder that "forces" them to commit a crime, I'm sure you can find someone with the same feature who lives a normal life. Brains are not computers, you cannot expect to hack them for a quick fix to interpersonal problems.
I am extremely puzzled by your post. You start out asking what "if the abnormality is the result of psychopathy and not the cause" and then go on to talk like your hypothesis is proven fact. I have no choice but to ask you the opposing question: What if there turns out to be a direct, provable causation between the abnormality and psychopathy? What if there are people who literally have NO choice about their 'moral' decisions? At the very least it would put the practice of 'punishment' under a whole new light if you are punishing people for something they have no control over.
My personal view, based upon my own experience, agrees somewhat with some of what you said. MOST people can at the very least see the consequences of their actions, if not the actual morality of them, and can choose to act one way or another. On the other hand, I have met a few individuals who have no tangible empathy or sympathy, and cannot perceive that their actions will affect their or others lives adversely, no matter how much you try to teach them. I call them Neoconservatives (I joke...).
All kidding aside, punishing someone who cannot see their actions as wrong, or even realizing the adverse consequences their action will have on theirs or others lives is pointless and cruel. By better understanding and possibly treating the extreme cases instead instead of locking them away for life or killing them, possibly we can also help the ones that are not so severe to not commit a crime in a time of weakness and throwing their life away, when they could have been a productive member of society. I understand this brings up questions about free will. But at the very least, I can imagine a juvenile or first time offender gladly give up some of their own free will if it gave them back some humanity and gave them the freedom to live in society instead of being locked away from it. I realize I am getting into Anthony Burgess / Clockwork Orange territory (It may not be nice to be good, little 6655321. ... It may be horrible to be good. And when I say that to you I realize how self-contradictory that sounds. I know I shall have many sleepless nights about this. What does God want? Does God want goodness or the choice of goodness? Is a man who chooses the bad perhaps in some ways better than a man who has the good imposed upon him? Deep and hard questionsâ¦) but that example, as deep and disturbing as it was, again presumed that people actions are purely a matter of choice, and in the real world not everything is black and white. Often times there is a gray area. And sometimes, there are new discoveries and ideas that completely redefine the color scale.
One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces. - PF
Because dogs are animals and the danger to multiple human beings outweighs the animals life because rabies is an infectious disease and thus can spread to others and must be contained. And the only way we know how to treat rabies before it becomes incurable (and knew at what point it becomes incurable) was by keeping the dogs (and humans) alive.
A State sanctioned murder is morally worse than a sociopath's, because we know better.
Revenge is NOT justice.
One of these days I'm going to cut you into little pieces. - PF
Lots of laws themselves are antisocial; the Jim Crow laws in the US in the early 20th century, for example. As Spock's dad would scream when he's got the Vulcan alzheimer's, "ILLOGICAL! ILLOGICAL! ILLOGICAL! *sob*"
There's a distinction in the English system between "mala prohibita" and "mala in se". The first is laws like 'smoking a joint is wrong'. The second is 'killing your neighbor is wrong'. The second were the laws that made Common Law.
When the phrase "ignorance of the law is no defence" was coined it referred to "in se" crime, and I can't find the original quote at the moment, but it went on to explain that nobody could possibly be expected to know all of the prohibita law (which is orders of more difficult today).
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