Lack of Empathy in Psychopaths

James Fallon is a neuroscientist and a medical school professor. He’s relatively average guy on the surface. In his research, he discovers neurological patterns in his brain are identical to patterns in the brain of a psychopath. He continues researching serial murders, and discovers  what it was in their brains that would explain their evil nature. 

Fallon noted that there was a decrease of activity in the orbital cortex by the amygdala which prevents impulsivity normally. This means that people who have this decrease are more likely to be impulsive, which would make sense for someone who is a psychopath. In addition to this, someone with damage to the orbital cortex, cannot predict others’ thoughts and has sharing his feelings. This would entail they’re missing empathy and theory of mind, which means to about visualize another’s perspectives. They also have decreased activity in the ventomedial pre-frontal cortex which leads to inhtion in social behavior, ethics, and morality. Their cold behavior is do to damage in the temporal lobe at the amygdala. Fallon highlighted how a psychopath’s brain has a poorly functioning ventral system, yet a normal dorsal system. Therefore, they are without context and empathy which leads to cold panning and execution of predatory behaviors become finely, tuned, and persuasive. It’s these defects that give the illusion a psychopath actually cares for the people in his or her life. 

An article titled, “Psychopaths Might Have an Impaired Empathy Circuit,” contains some parallels to Fallon’s study and makes more interesting findings on lack of empathy in psychopaths due to their brains.  The experiment illustrated how when thinking about pain on someone else, the brain shows abnormality by the amygdala while areas of pleasure were stimulated. This is like Fallon’s findings, because it also showed that there was reduced activity in the amygdala which a crucial part of the limbic system, or the system hat deals with emotions in the brain. This defect is what fuels psychopath’s ruthless behavior and can result in the shamelessly committed horrendous acts. 

Reference

Fallon, James H. The Psychopath Inside: A Neuroscientist's Personal Journey into the Dark Side of the Brain. New York: Current, 2013. Print.

Knight, M. (2013, December 19). Psychopaths Might Have an Impaired Empathy Circuit. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/psychopaths-might-have-an-impaired-empathy-circuit/