Upon reading James Fallon’s book, The
Psychopath Inside: A Neuroscientist’s Personal Journey into the Dark Side of
the Brain, I found his chapter on the brain of a killer to be quite
interesting. Jim mentions that the neuroanatomy of psychopaths, murderers, and
other criminals are not the same as normal humans. I thought this idea was
fascinating, that these horrible people are different from us even in their
brain anatomy. James did lots of research in this field, studying many scans of
different individuals, both criminals and healthy people. He is an expert in
the field of neuroanatomy and his experience makes him a good candidate to
explain the linkage between differing neuroanatomy and its correlation with
psychopathy.
From his research, James noticed
that the brains of killers have a decrease in activity of the orbital cortex,
and the area around the amygdala. In a healthy brain these areas prevent
impulsivity and certain types of sudden behaviors. A decrease in activity would
lead to a person becoming impulsive with lack of judgment. The most astonishing
part about this was the fact that a few lawyers representing a murder mentioned
this information to a judge which led him to reduce the killer’s sentence from
the death penalty to life without parole.
Going through the news provider, The
Guardian, I came across an interesting story titled “How to spot a murderer’s
brain”. It describes a neurocriminologist, Adrian Raine, similar to James
Fallon who studied brain scans of people with ADHD, PTSD and Alzheimer’s mixed
with scans of healthy individuals to ensure a non-biased study. There are two
types of neuroanatomists, clumpers and splitters. Splitters split the brain
into many different parts, often naming parts by the scientist who discovered
them. Meanwhile, clumpers like organizing the brain into fewer parts. James
Fallon regarded himself as a splitter and based off of the news article, I
would say Adrian is most like a clumper.
Adrian used PET (positron emission
tomography) to study his subjects, while James used and MRI scanner. They both
used functional tests, meaning scans that would detect activity in certain
parts of the brain. This is helpful because it can tell us the level of
activity in certain areas of the brain which can provide us with more
information that just size, shape and location of brain parts. Raine mentioned
the idea of epigenetics affecting psychopathy often in the article. James study
of the COMT enzyme, and its two different variations relates to this finding.
The methionine version of the enzyme, rather than the valine version, is
responsible for breaking down dopamine in the frontal lobe at a much faster
rate because of its low melting point. This rapid breakdown of dopamine is
linked with an individual being able to plan ahead and simulate future events,
something psychopaths lack.
Raine and Fallon noted that
psychopaths have damage to the front of the temporal lobe and the amygdala
because these areas process emotions. They also found that areas responsible
for anxiety and empathy are low function in killers so they don't feel regret
or stress during their crimes. Raine predicts that brain scanning to gauge
psychopathy in an individual could be in the near future. Although this seems
quite far-fetched, the information James provides in his book greatly
supports this idea as there is a strong correlation.
References
Adams, T. (2013, May 10). How to spot a murderer's brain.
Retrieved February 28, 2015, from http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/may/12/how-to-spot-a-murderers-brain
Fallon, James H. The Psychopath Inside: A Neuroscientist's
Personal Journey into the Dark Side of the Brain.
New York: Current, 2013. Print.
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