What made Bernie Madoff tick? The guy amiably chatted with life-long friends over dinner as he drained their life savings. Or Jeff Dahmer, who befriended his victims, lured them to his apartment and then had them for dinner. It’s always been disturbing yet fascinating: The Bard got it right when he wrote that one may smile and smile and be a villain.
One neuroscientist, James Fallon, spent much of his career studying the brains of psychopaths and sociopathic criminals. According to the bible of the mental health profession, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: Sociopaths and psychopaths fall into a category of mental illness called antisocial personality disorder. These are the type of people who use manipulation and seemingly reckless behavior to get what they want. They display little or no empathy (the ability to see things from another’s point of view). Sociopaths are often described as hot-headed bullies and psychopaths are seen as cold-hearted snakes.
After a detailed study of the brains of sociopathic criminals using PET scans (an imaging technique that evaluates the metabolic activity of different brain regions), Fallon discovered a brain imbalance. In 2014, he described a dearth of activity in the area of the prefrontal cortex (the brain area just above the eyes, responsible for executive functions), At the same time, in these sociopaths, he determined the amygdala (part of the limbic system, involved in emotions and memories) may be more active than normal. The increased activity in the amygdala of psychopaths was confirmed by the findings of researchers in Wisconsin (ironically, the birthplace of Dahmer) using functional MRI studies. Fallon contends that, in normal people, the frontal region puts a brake on the amygdala, curbing sociopathic behavior.
Fallon then took things a step further. As detailed in his book, The Psychopath Inside: A Neuroscientist's Personal Journey into the Dark Side of the Brain, he analyzed brain PET scans of relatives and descendants of violent criminals (including his own brain) and compared them to the brains of psychopaths he had previously studied. He determined that the brain changes in the prefrontal cortex and the amygdala may be passed down from generation to generation (the psychopath apple doesn’t fall far from the sociopath tree). Fallon was less than pleased to learn that he himself had inherited not only his steely blue eyes, but the brain of a psychopath!
In 2019, Spanish scientists described additional anatomical changes in the brains of psychopaths. It turns out, it’s not simply that specific regions of the brain are affected, but also the circuitry that links them. The amygdala (located in the temporal lobe) may be thought of as the hub (center of the circuit) of a brain socialization network. The circuit connects the amygdala to the prefrontal cortex, then runs to the posterior cingulate cortex (an area of the brain that integrates executive functions and emotion) and precuneus (a part of the brain that allows one to feel in control of one’s actions and events in the external world) then heads back to the amygdala. Using functional MRIs, the researchers determined that, during a moral challenge, this circuit functions anomalously in psychopaths, which results in an emotional flow breakdown.
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Oh wow didn't realise that personality disorders/psychopathy had such distinct neuroanatomical and neurochemical circuit changes!
Intriguing and so well done. Marc, stop amazing me. ( just kidding). 🙈