What Do We Know About Psychopaths?

A psychopath can be described as someone with an unstable, abnormal, or violent behavior. However there seems to be some patterns in the brains of psychopaths that allows scientists to predict who will become a psychopath. In James Fallon's book The Psychopath Inside, Fallon talks about what some of the qualities are from the brain that can predict these behaviors. Fallon says “Psychopaths all showed these brain areas [limbic cortex, orbital and ventromedial prefrontal cortices] with lower activity.” (Fallon 61). Through Fallon’s studies of brain scans, he was able to find common areas that in the brain that psychopaths all share and through these areas, we can understand why they act in certain ways. Fallon also explains how some of the areas affect someone’s behavior when writing that “[The ventromedial prefontal cortex] is involved in inhibition, social behavior, ethics, and morality” (57). This means that with lower activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, people have less inhibition and morality along with a lack of appropriate social behavior and ethics. In the Time article Psychopaths and Callous Children Show Dysfunctional Brain Responses to People In Pain, written by Maia Szalavitz it is discovered that some psychopaths may not behave in the way we once thought. In Szalavitz’s article she talks about in a study of psychopaths reacting to people in pain, they are shown to have increased activity in the anterior insula. Szalavitz says that “the insula monitors your own emotional and physical states, it’s also important for empathizing with others” (Szalavitz) which means that a higher activity in the insula would mean they emphasize more. A higher empathy level is inconsistent with what psychopaths are thought to be, emotionless when it comes to others. Fallon may have an explanation when discussing how “Psychopaths’ dorsal systems work so well, they can learn how to appear that they care” (Fallon 60). While this may not be the explanation for Szalavitz’s findings, it could be an indication that psychopaths have found a way to activate their insula to appear as if they are emphasizing with people in pain when they may actually not feel for the people in pain.

                The research that Fallon has done has suggested that there are common patterns in the brain that psychopaths share, so through some common activity, we can predict which people are more likely to become psychopathic. Szalavitz’s research suggests that we may not understand all there is to know about psychopaths because their insula activates which means they are more empathetic towards others in pain. So it seems that either psychopaths do have reduced inhibition, morality, and social behavior like Fallon suggests, or that perhaps they do care about others in a way people didn’t think of before like Szalavitz suggests.

Fallon, J. (2013). The psychopath inside: A neuroscientist's personal journey into the dark side of the brain. New York: Penguin.

Szalavitz, M. (2013). Psychopaths and Callous Children Show Dysfunctional Brain Responses to People In Pain. Time.