Hiding In Plain Sight

Imagine, the person sitting next to you on the bus or the person that just served you at your local Starbucks is planning to kill you. Scary right? Seem far-fetched? Well maybe but maybe not. The fact of the matter is that a person can be a psychopath and yet seem like a totally normal member of society. What does it truly mean to be a psychopath? It is a term that is widely overused nowadays. Psychopaths hide in plain sight every day. Anyone could be a psychopath. In his book, Fallon describes psychopaths as "deeply disturbed individuals who ultimately cannot control their innate aggressiveness and show little regret or sympathy for their violent actions." Similarly, in his article, David Wilson, states that psychopaths have defective emotional responses, lacking remorse for their manipulative, reckless behavior and find it impossible to truly understand why it is that people might actually find their behavior wrong. They operate in their own moral universe and are so detached from reality that they don't realize how strange their behavior has become. A clear example that comes to mind is Dexter Morgan from the television series Dexter, which I highly recommend if you're like me and watch a lot of TV. Dexter is a normal looking and behaving person. He has a family, loves boating, and the best part is that he works for the police department as a forensic scientist. To the outside world he is a perfectly normal person. But he has a deep dark secret. He has these unusual violent urges. He is a cold blooded killer that cuts his victims into pieces with mechanical tools. This is very similar to Dennis Rader, the psychopathic killer Wilson discusses in his article. Rader, who dubbed himself as BTK - bind, torture, and kill - was seen by his community as a perfectly normal person. He attended church, was a scout leader, and had a family. Wilson describes him as the "perfect" psychopath. He was a ruthless and disturbed individual but no one would be able to tell by interacting with him. According to his son, Rader was a "perfect father" and his wife described him as a "Good man that would never hurt anyone." He had all the characteristics of a typical psychopath yet in public he showed none of them. The fact that psychopaths are able to hide like this in plain sight is what makes them even more dangerous. So next time think twice before you take a sip of your "Pumpkin Spice Latte". Alright maybe I'm being a bit dramatic but you get my point.

Refrences

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

Wilson, D. (2015, February 24). How psychopathics hide in plain sight - a psychological analysis of serial killer Dennis Radar. Retrieved February 28, 2015, from http://www.independent.co.uk/

Empty Empathy

Psychiatrists generally agree that one of the defining characteristics of psychopaths is the lack of interpersonal empathy. Psychopaths are often impulsive, yet they lack guilt and remorse (Fallon, 2013, p. 27). In a research study lead by Professor Sheilagh Hodgins of the University of Montreal, 50 people were recruited and subjected to Magnetic Resonance Imaging. 12 of them were violent offenders with antisocial personality disorder and psychopathy, 20 violent offenders were with antisocial personality disorder but not psychopathy, and 18 were healthy non-offenders, recruited from Britain's probation service.

Researchers found that offenders with psychopathy may only consider the possible positive consequences and fail to take account of the likely negative consequences of their actions. This behavior is seen in Fallon himself when he recalls his fascination with explosions. One occurrence he states when his actions almost led to burning down a house, yet those drastic repercussions did not cause him to deter from continuing.

The scientists observed reductions in gray matter volumes in the regions of the brain involved in empathy. Abnormalities were also found in white matter regions of the brain associated with lack of empathy and that are also involved in learning from rewards and punishments. Empathy usually refers to one’s emotional reactivity to another individual person. It is being able to put yourself in another’s shoes and experiencing emotionally what that person is experiencing (Fallon, 2013 p. 223).

According to Fallon, he lacked this connection interpersonal empathy in regards to his father, his wife, and even his children. He states, “I didn’t feel connected to my kids until they were old enough to start responding as human beings, when they were toddlers. Before that, they were like dolls to me (Fallon, 2013 p. 215).” He even admits that when he says, “love,” in regards to his wife, Diane, he never truly felt fully emotionally connected to her. Their relationship was successful because of his fascination towards her and of their common goals and values.

The MRI data gathered by these researchers is key to understanding the biological aspect of this lack of empathy in psychopathic minds. It is critical in the development of programs to prevent violent criminal actions and develop proper intervention that target specific brain mechanisms. By gaining insight on the specific brain mechanisms, it would allow scientists to better intervene with psychopathic behaviors that would reduce recidivism and even initial violent crime outbreaks.

References:

Fallon, J. (2013). The Psychopath Inside: A Neuroscientist's Personal Journey into the Dark Side of the Brain. New York: Penguin.

University of Montreal. (2015, January 27). Psychopathic violent offenders’ brains can’t understand punishment. ScienceDaily. Retrieved February 27, 2015 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150127212158.htm

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150127212158.htm

What Makes A Psychopath?

In his book, The Psychopath Inside: A Neuroscientist’s Personal Journey Into the Dark Side of the Brain, James Fallon writes about how his search in learning about the minds of a psychopath led him to discover that he himself fits the profile of one. In his memoir, Fallon makes a connection that the patterns from his brain scan are similar to those patterns in the brain of serial killers. In one of the chapters of the book, Fallon talks about his childhood up to his days in graduate school. As a kid, Fallon describe himself as a person who was “…cheerful, insightful, likeable, friendly, prankster…”(37). During college, people close to him began to notice that his personality began to change, even a priest began referring to him as evil (64). What I thought was interesting after reading about Fallon’s upbringing in this chapter was how normal he would have appeared to other people who weren’t close to him. Fallon appeared to live a normal life; he engaged in sports, had a girlfriend, and did not distance himself from society.

            Fallon talks about his encounters with violence during his childhood. He remembers when he used to work in his father and uncle’s pharmacy and he started building a love for explosive chemicals. He started to make “…fireworks and then graduated, with the help of a particularly daring friend to making larger and larger pipe bombs…”(41). Fallon mentioned how he would hang out with friends who were destructive and ill-behaved. One of the activities they enjoyed was shooting animals which Fallon never took part in.

            What I am getting to is the debate of the influence of nature and nurture in one’s upbringing and how this particularly part of the chapter reminded me of it. James Fallon, throughout his time being raised, was put into situations or surrounded by people who were violent. Although I do believe nature, as in our genes, play a role in developing psychological problems, I also believe that the environment we are raised in and the people we meet are just as important. However, to what extent these external stimuli affect the person depends on the person themselves and how they process it.

            The ongoing debate between nature versus nurture was brought up again with the case of Sandy Hook shooter, Adam Lanza. The article talks about how Lanza played multiple shooting games, one even called School Shooting. The article also mentioned how Lanza’s mother took him to the shooting range to learn how to use guns. Both Lanza and his mother took gun safety courses as well. We don’t know for sure if these factors played a role in Lanza performing such a heartless act or if it was just a coincidence. But it is something we should take into account and definitely should not ignore. Despite brain scans showing he shared similarities with brains of serial killers, Fallon turned out to live a normal life, having a family and keeping a stable job. The environment a person is raised in can influential to his/her psychological development or it can have little to no effect. It varies on the stability of the person and how the person processes these situations.

References:

Pilkington, Ed. "Sandy Hook Report – Shooter Adam Lanza Was Obsessed with Mass Murder." Theguardian. 25 Nov. 2013. Web. 27 Feb. 2015. <http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/25/sandy-hook-shooter-adam-lanza-report>.

Fallon, James H. "Ch.2 Evil Brewing." The Psychopath Inside: A Neuroscientist's Personal Journey into the Dark Side of the Brain. New York: Current, 2013. Print.

The Psychopath

In the book, “The Psychopath Inside: A Neuroscientist's Personal Journey Into the Dark Side of the Brain," James Fallon describes how shocked he was to not only find out that his brain scans matched other psychopathic killers, but  he has distant relatives who were notorious killers. One of Fallon’s relative--Thomas Cornell--killed his own mother while the other relative--Lizze Bordan-- killed both of her parents. Fallon reports that becoming a psychopath is due to the combination of genes and environmental factors. Fallon tells us that an enzyme called monoamine oxidase MAO is found in many psychopaths. The MAO is related to antisocial behavior, sleeping and eating disorder, hallucinations, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorders. He states that low MAO activity results in aggressive and impulsive behavior (Fallon 72-80). What’s interesting is that an article, “Monoamine Oxidase and Its Effects on the Brain,” from Emory University reveals that MAO is found throughout the central nervous system and it is influenced by sex and stress hormones. Epinephrine, corticosterone, androgen, and estrogen all lower MAO. In other words, stress makes you more aggressive and impulsive. So does that mean that stress leads you to become a psychopath?

Obviously the answer is NO because we would all be psychopaths by now!

Moving onto criminals and their genes, last year the BBC released an article, “Two genes linked with violent crime,” which reported that MAO genes and variants of Cadherin 13 CDH13 gene both were linked to violent behavior. The CDH13 links to impulse control while the MAO gene controls dopamine levels in the brain. It becomes so important for the body to keep these genes in control because drugs, alcohol, and stress can really do great damage if you are a carrier for the gene. I was amazed that if you’re a carrier for both of the genes and you’re drunk, you will become very aggressive and you’re more likely to commit violent acts.

Overall, it’s very important to state that even if you have these psychopath genes, genes are not the only determining factor that will quality you as a psychopath. I find it ironic how James Fallon is the epitome of all these neurological disorders, yet today he is still living an “almost” perfect life. I personally believe that your environment, peers, family, friends, and social circumstances are more likely to determine if you will become a psychopath.  

References

Fallon, James. (2013) The Psychopath Inside. New York, New York: Penguin Group.

Hogenboom, Melissa. "Two Genes Linked with Violent Crime." BBC NEWS. BBC, 28 Oct. 2014. Web. 27 Feb. 2015.

Jones, Caitlin M. "Brain Lightning - The Ultimate Neurological Supplement." Brain Lightning - The Ultimate Neurological Supplement. Rochester Institute of Technology, n.d. Web. 27 Feb. 2015.

  

My Genes Made Me Do it!

When it comes to studying psychopathy, the ‘warrior gene’ has been made popular by the media. In, The Psychopath Inside Dr. Fallon explains that the gene leads to an under production of the enzyme known as MAO-A. Because of this under production, there are fewer enzymes to break down serotonin. This causes permanent alternations in the brain during fetal development. As an adult, the mutation severely inhibits an individual’s response to serotonin. Dr. Fallon says, “The brain areas that should turn off the anger and range after a minute or so are permanently altered so that there are fewer neurons to respond, and fewer serotonin receptors to turn on or off” (Fallon 80).

Dr. Fallon explains that the warrior gene is located on the X-chromosome. Some studies have shown that as many as 30 percent of X-chromosomes contain this gene. Males only have one X-chromosome, and the gene present is expressed. Females have two X-chromosomes, and the gene will only be expressed if it is present on both X-chromosomes. Males are more likely to experience increased aggression, and the additional testosterone in their systems only amplifies aggressive behavior more than in females (Fallon 81-82).

Recently, genetics has begun playing a role in the Justice system. One example of this is of is in the case of Rene Patrick Bourassa, who has been charged with murder. When he was arrested, he did not deny the murder and even walked the authorities through the steps. Mr. Wolfson of Newsweek reports that “[Bourassa] had been sleeping at the church that week, first outside, and then in the chapel, presumably to escape the heat and mosquitoes. When Wilson walked into the church that morning, Bourassa picked up a brass cross from the Communion table, beat her to death, and stole her car” (Wolfson, 2014, para. 4). While on trial, the defendant and his attorneys insisted that his brain made him do it.

            

            In the US justice system, in order to be convicted of a crime, it has to be proved that the accused was consciously aware of what they did, while they were doing it. This is based on the Model Penal Code, a 1962 document largely based on Freudian texts. Some would argue that this is outdated and needs to be with a more comprehensive model.

            Bourassa had the MAOA-3R variant of the MAOA gene. This warrior gene predisposed him to be more likely to hurt others. Bad genes alone won’t make you a killer. Dr. Fallon found that based on a small survey of 35 psychopathic offenders in youth detention facilities, 70% had been abused and mistreated during childhood. Dr. Fallon said, “I began to think that upbringing might play a significant role in creating a criminal after all” (Fallon 91). In 2014, a meta-analysis looked at 27 different MAOA studies and confirmed that being abused as a child effected how the MAOA gene was expressed. A possible way this happens is through epigenetic markings. This tag is one of many alterations to the genetic code that can be induced by environmental stressors

            Bourassa underwent extensive psychiatric interviews with psychiatrist James Walker. Newsweek reports, “It had been discovered that that he had been sexually molested at the age of 4 by a friend of his father; in the fifth grade, he was repeatedly raped by an older boy; and at age 21, he was brutally beaten in a mugging. As the science goes, Bourassa was from adolescence more likely to hurt others” (Wolfson, 2014, para. 14).

            The outcome of the case is that Bourassa was found guilty of capital murder. Normally he would have been sentenced to death, but instead got life in prison without parole. Because of his defense, he was able to get a more lenient sentence. Insanity pleas in the court system are rare. However, pleas such as Bourassa’s have been proven to result in lighter sentences. Current research on what triggers and drives aggressive and violent behavior, such as genetic predisposition towards psychopathic tendencies, might undermine previous accounts of what it means to commit a premeditated and conscious crime. A lot of questions arise as to how predisposed criminals should be treated in court. The Model Penal Code of 1962 desperately needs to be updated to remain relevant and applicable to today’s society.

            Can this type of psychopathic crime be prevented in the future? Today we have different screenings and genetic testing available and this sort of genetic screening could be more common in the future. Dr. Fallon says, “I’m for genetic testing at birth to determine which kids will be vulnerable to stress…the testing would be a key to preventing more psychopaths” (Fallon 104). Genetic screening could fine the children that need extra attention. The only proven prevention for psychopathy is a positive and safe environment for raising children. A lot more research still needs to be done, but the future might better equip us to prevent psychopathic killings. The future of the courtroom will continue to experience change as genetics and other factors play a role in behavior. Now, we wait and see how new research will affect the judicial system.

Fallon, J. (2013). The Psychopath Inside: A neuroscientist's personal journey into the dark side of the brain. New York, New York: Current.

Wolfson, E. (2014, March 4). My Genes Did It! Newsweek. Retrieved from

http://www.newsweek.com/2014/03/14/my-genes-did-it-247951.html

Normal With a Pinch of Psycho

The spine-chilling Hollywood productions that instantly become American classics reawaken crimes of the most grisly serial killers, hand picking and fabricating the most detestable psychopathic traits into a spooky brew of your guilty pleasure. Thankfully, the majority of these murderous transgressions are a fiction of Hollywood. The reality is that many psychopaths never go on to become murderers, or even become violent offenders (at least not physically).

But, Hollywood did, as it often does, glean its material for the infinite renditions of Texas Chainsaw Massacre from a true house of horrors. Sometimes regarded as “The Original Psycho,” Ed Gein inspired at least two other iconic thrillers: Psycho and Silence of the Lambs. Although often concealed from the media, there are also tragic non-fictions involving unrepentant child killers; children that some professionals argue are early emerging psychopaths. One such tragedy ended in the lives of two little boys, ages 3 and 4 years old, who were unabashedly, without remorse, strangled by infamous 11-year-old, Mary Bell. In another well-known case, 9-year-old Jeffrey Bailey pulled up a chair to watch after he pushed a toddler into a motel swimming pool (Kahn, 2012, Times). When questioned, Bailey simply told the police that he wanted to see someone drown (Kahn).

Unfortunately, despite our advances in understanding the human brain and many psychopathologies, there is no psychiatric diagnosis for psychopathy. In fact, there is still much controversy over what defines it, and no fixed consensus as to the underlying causes (Fallon, 2013). The closest standard for diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). Increasingly, however, many psychiatrists and psychologists are agreeing that “[ASPD] is not always the animal you’re looking for” (Fallon).

The underlying problem with defining what constitutes a psychopath is that there are different kinds. Not to mention, some indicative personality traits found in psychopaths overlap with, or are easily confused with diagnostic criteria for other disorders such as narcissism, antisocial personality disorder, and sexual sadism. Typically, psychopathic traits are divided into two categories of factors: one takes into account antisocial and criminal behavior, and the other considers one’s social relationships and interactions via manipulation, pathological lying or lack of empathy—to name a few (Fallon). Behaviors that may be seen as acts of simple wickedness to the unacquainted are distinct beasts to experts like Jean Decety of the University of Chicago and Nigel Blackwood at King's College London. 

With the intention of narrowing down what exactly makes the psychopath tick, Decety and colleagues contrasted psychopaths to sexual sadists, while Backwood contrasted individuals with antisocial personality disorder to psychopaths.

In brief, Decety took brain scans of 15 violent sexual offenders, eight of whom were diagnosed as sexual sadists, while they were shown images of people in pain against controls (images involving no pain). For instance, participants might have been shown an image of someone stabbing another person’s hand with scissors, or an image of someone stabbing a table (Szalavitz, 2012, Time). The brain scans demonstrated that sadists, compared to other sexual offenders, showed more activity in their amygdala when viewing the images involving pain. Additionally, when asked to rate the pain experienced by victims in the images, sadists rated the pain as more intense than non-sadists, and the more intense the sadists rated the pain, the more activity there was in a brain region involved in bringing one’s own feelings to awareness, called the insula (Szalavitz).

As explained by Decety, “If you live with a psychopath and you cry because that person was unpleasant to you, that probably doesn’t matter to him. He is not moved and doesn’t care, because he doesn’t feel anything about what you feel. The sadists do feel. They understand that the victim is in pain. They experience it vicariously and are aroused by it.”

Separately, Blackwood found that in comparison to people with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) only, psychopaths showed reduced volume in both the temporal pole and the anterior rostral prefrontal cortex (arPFC); brain regions that play a key role in understanding one’s own, as well as others’ thoughts and emotions. Blackwood’s findings suggest that although psychopaths must retain at least some awareness of what others are thinking and feeling--evidenced by their ability to manipulate others--damage in these areas may explain their indifference to others’ feelings, as well as their own emotionlessness (Szalavitz).

Correspondingly, previous research has shown that abnormalities in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), an area important for social and affective decision-making, distinguish the brains of psychopaths from non-psychopaths. Abnormalities in this region may account for psychopaths’ disregard for negative consequences often resulting from socially unacceptable behaviors (Szalavitz).

Comparatively, Blackwood depicts individuals with ASPD as often engaging in reactive violence to threats that may not exist, and may consequently feel remorse; whereas, psychopaths may be equally violent but cold. Furthermore, it’s typical of individuals with both ASPD and psychopathy to have experienced abuse during childhood; however, as adults, psychopaths exhibit little anxiety and effectively no fear, while individuals with ASPD may show signs of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Szalavitz).

For author of The Psychopath Inside, James Fallon, a self-described biologically tagged psychopath, successful neuroscientist of 40 years, and beloved husband and father, what makes a psychopath a psychopath comes down to three key factors: "(1) unusually low functioning of the orbital prefrontal cortex and anterior temporal lobe, including the amygdala, (2) the high-risk variants of several genes, the most famous being the warrior gene, and (3) early childhood emotional, physical, or sexual abuse" (Fallon).

According to Fallon, there is a blurry line that separates him as a non-physically violent psychopath from a violent criminal predator. Fallon almost inherited a recipe for disaster: the warrior gene along with genes associated with antisocial behavior, low anxiety and empathy, and the same functional and structural abnormalities he had been identifying in the brains of psychopathic criminals and even murderers for years.

Despite having this fundamental biology, Fallon lacked what he views as the final ingredient: a violent early environment. Destructive environmental influences that persist early on in development may make up that blurry line that divides “a prosocial psychopath or somebody on the edge who doesn’t act out violently, to someone who is a real violent predator” (Fallon).

Despite young Fallon’s scientific bias that individuals are concocted from an 80:20 dose of genetics and environment, early experience can and does act as a much more profound determinant of whether or not someone who possesses the biology divulges such violent psychopathic behavior.

This interplay of nature and nurture during early childhood is the origin from which all antisocial behaviors seem to be derived, and in some cases, personality disorders such as ASPD and psychopathic traits can emerge as early as 2 or 3-years old (Szalavitz).

Adult ASPD first asserts itself early in life in the form of childhood conduct disorder (CD), “characterized by persistent defiant and sometimes cruel behavior” (Szalavitz). Although CD is a pre-diagnoses required for adult ASPD, at least one-third grow out of CD and do not develop ASPD, and most will not become psychopaths.

On the other hand, children who are identified with callous/unemotional traits are at the most risk for becoming psychopaths, and consist of a smaller group who are early on characterized as exhibiting “a lack of fear and indifference towards others” (Szalavitz).

Decety predicts that the foundation for sexual sadism is also laid down very early in infancy via the development of pleasure and pain pathways that correspond to being either nurtured or abused as babies. To further explain, Decety reminds us that for many years children are dependent on their caregivers, and so when abused, they love the people who are causing them pain. The pathways in the brain involved in processing pain and the pathways involved in the experience of pleasure overlap and are interrelated; thus, when a child learns to link loving his or her caregivers and the pleasure he or she experiences from loving them, with the pain they’re inflicting, the child may begin to seek and develop pleasure from pain (Szalavitz).

Experts agree that separate diagnoses with high diagnostic sensitivity are crucial for developing treatments for these personality disorders in children and adults. Both children with callous/unemotional traits and adult psychopaths lack fear of punishment and are more or less indifferent to the thoughts and feelings of others, making the development of treatments and successful rehabilitation extraordinarily difficult (Szalavitz). While children with CD often have strong antisocial behaviors, treatments that involve reforming children’s home environments are often successful. Unsurprisingly then, it is much easier to reform adults with ASPD than psychopaths (Szalavitz).

Presently, there is a need for continued research that specifically focuses on what differentiates those who outgrow their CD and callous/unemotional traits from those who become psychopaths (Szalavitz). Moreover, Fallon points out that because some personality disorders, including psychopathy, emerge early on, it’s crucial that we acquire more trained eyes. Early recognition of troubling behaviors could potentially offshoot a child who has these genetic predispositions from crossing that dividing line from not dangerous to dangerous.

In essence, being able to identify and notify parents to watch for the emergence of certain behaviors opens the possibility of earlier treatment and cautions parents to the increased susceptibility and potentially detrimental effects of stressful interactions like bullying or abuse, while promoting a nurturing and supportive home environment.

On the whole, elements that compose the mosaic of psychopathic traits seem to be present in a variety of degrees and combinations describing the different kinds of psychopaths that Fallon and many other professionals recognize. It's true that we may be able to describe psychopaths with some certainty, but we have scarcely begun to understand them. In Fallon’s world, the uncertainty of the future will become his ultimate test. “…The essential difference in criminality between that and murder is something we all hate and we all fear. It just isn’t known if there is some absolute trigger” (Fallon).

Fallon, J. (2013). The Psychopath Inside: A Neuroscientist's Journey Into the Dark Side of the Brain. 

           New York, NY: Penguin Group.
Kahn, J. (2012, May 11). Can You Call a 9-Year-Old a Psychopath? The New York Times.

Szalavitz, M. (2012, May 14). Understanding Psychopathic and Sadistic Minds. TIME.