Video - Paul Eckman talks about microexpressions in lie detection.
Newswise | Images of prisoners’ brains show important differences between those who are diagnosed as psychopaths and those who aren’t, according to a new study led by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers.
The results could help explain the callous and impulsive anti-social behavior exhibited by some psychopaths.
The study showed that psychopaths have reduced connections between the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), the part of the brain responsible for sentiments such as empathy and guilt, and the amygdala, which mediates fear and anxiety. Two types of brain images were collected. Diffusion tensor images (DTI) showed reduced structural integrity in the white matter fibers connecting the two areas, while a second type of image that maps brain activity, a functional magnetic resonance image (fMRI), showed less coordinated activity between the vmPFC and the amygdala.
“This is the first study to show both structural and functional differences in the brains of people diagnosed with psychopathy,” says Michael Koenigs, assistant professor of psychiatry in the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. “Those two structures in the brain, which are believed to regulate emotion and social behavior, seem to not be communicating as they should.”
The study, which took place in a medium-security prison in Wisconsin, is a unique collaborative between three laboratories,
UW-Madison psychology Professor Joseph Newman has had a long term interest in studying and diagnosing those with psychopathy and has worked extensively in the Wisconsin corrections system. Dr. Kent Kiehl, of the University of New Mexico and the MIND Research Network, has a mobile MRI scanner that he brought to the prison and used to scan the prisoners’ brains. Koenigs and his graduate student, Julian Motzkin, led the analysis of the brain scans.
The study compared the brains of 20 prisoners with a diagnosis of psychopathy with the brains of 20 other prisoners who committed similar crimes but were not diagnosed with psychopathy.
“The combination of structural and functional abnormalities provides compelling evidence that the dysfunction observed in this crucial social-emotional circuitry is a stable characteristic of our psychopathic offenders,’’ Newman says. “I am optimistic that our ongoing collaborative work will shed more light on the source of this dysfunction and strategies for treating the problem.”
Newman notes that none of this work would be possible without the extraordinary support provided by the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, which he called “the silent partner in this research.” He says the DOC has demonstrated an unprecedented commitment to supporting research designed to facilitate the differential diagnosis and treatment of prisoners.
The study, published in the most recent Journal of Neuroscience, builds on earlier work by Newman and Koenigs that showed that psychopaths' decision-making mirrors that of patients with known damage to their ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). This bolsters evidence that problems in that part of the brain are connected to the disorder.
“The decision-making study showed indirectly what this study shows directly – that there is a specific brain abnormality associated with criminal psychopathy,’’
The results could help explain the callous and impulsive anti-social behavior exhibited by some psychopaths.
The study showed that psychopaths have reduced connections between the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), the part of the brain responsible for sentiments such as empathy and guilt, and the amygdala, which mediates fear and anxiety. Two types of brain images were collected. Diffusion tensor images (DTI) showed reduced structural integrity in the white matter fibers connecting the two areas, while a second type of image that maps brain activity, a functional magnetic resonance image (fMRI), showed less coordinated activity between the vmPFC and the amygdala.
“This is the first study to show both structural and functional differences in the brains of people diagnosed with psychopathy,” says Michael Koenigs, assistant professor of psychiatry in the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. “Those two structures in the brain, which are believed to regulate emotion and social behavior, seem to not be communicating as they should.”
The study, which took place in a medium-security prison in Wisconsin, is a unique collaborative between three laboratories,
UW-Madison psychology Professor Joseph Newman has had a long term interest in studying and diagnosing those with psychopathy and has worked extensively in the Wisconsin corrections system. Dr. Kent Kiehl, of the University of New Mexico and the MIND Research Network, has a mobile MRI scanner that he brought to the prison and used to scan the prisoners’ brains. Koenigs and his graduate student, Julian Motzkin, led the analysis of the brain scans.
The study compared the brains of 20 prisoners with a diagnosis of psychopathy with the brains of 20 other prisoners who committed similar crimes but were not diagnosed with psychopathy.
“The combination of structural and functional abnormalities provides compelling evidence that the dysfunction observed in this crucial social-emotional circuitry is a stable characteristic of our psychopathic offenders,’’ Newman says. “I am optimistic that our ongoing collaborative work will shed more light on the source of this dysfunction and strategies for treating the problem.”
Newman notes that none of this work would be possible without the extraordinary support provided by the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, which he called “the silent partner in this research.” He says the DOC has demonstrated an unprecedented commitment to supporting research designed to facilitate the differential diagnosis and treatment of prisoners.
The study, published in the most recent Journal of Neuroscience, builds on earlier work by Newman and Koenigs that showed that psychopaths' decision-making mirrors that of patients with known damage to their ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). This bolsters evidence that problems in that part of the brain are connected to the disorder.
“The decision-making study showed indirectly what this study shows directly – that there is a specific brain abnormality associated with criminal psychopathy,’’
17 comments:
SO why do we still have the death penalty, one thing to express revulsion over predators, the other is decision making of a society. Our minds is no different than the weirdness in the Cosmos, mechanically. Stalin's daughter died too, talking about psychopaths. This is why I said to you ambiguousness is a factor in all perceptions and use of words.
By their very nature,
heuristic shortcuts will produce biases, and that is true for both humans and
artificial intelligence, but the heuristics of AI are not necessarily the human
ones…It is useful to distinguish the content of thoughts from the mechanisms of
thinking. Some biases (e.g., preconceived notions, unscientific beliefs,
specific stereotypes) are biases of content and are likely to be culture-bound.
Other biases (e.g., the neglect of statistics, the neglect of ambiguity, the general
fact that we are prone to stereotyping) are inevitable side effects of the
operation of general-purpose psychological mechanisms…“blind to the obvious,”
but also we are “blind to our blindness.” Daniel Kahneman
“This is the first study to show both structural and functional differences in the brains of people diagnosed with psychopathy,”
Lol, uh, no. Swivelchair over at Neurological Correlates has been talking about white matter deficiency and brain region inter-communication research for years.
According to the research swivelchair has found, psychopaths can easily be detected using an fMRI. Since psychopathy is a functional/physical defect, it should be considered an aggravating factor leading to harsher sentencing -- lock-em-up-and-throw-away-the-key. Now, this does not include violent perps with otherwise normal brains -- they might be 'reformable'.
The question still remains for I doubt we will stop it before birth, is what does this mean for Law and Murder Cases. I raised this a couple of years ago with that great article in the NYT Magazine. "Neuron and the Law". It is interesting that Fyodor at the end of the 1800's raises in literary terms the same questions that we are doing in empirical findings. The one thing I agree with Doc is once we know keep them out of governance in any field. You are making a stretch in your "reformable" statement, there are connections in all predators. If a man gets hard, looking at a rape scene how close is he?
btw I find this to be quite interesting, an area brought up at the beginning of the science
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/health/for-some-psychiatric-troubles-may-begin-with-the-thyroid.html?emc=eta1
Spence asked a deep kwestin the other day about important teachers - and I answered re one of mine - Dr. Stephen Chorover who was my undergraduate advisor and has shaped the ethics of generations of MIT students while introducing us to levels of the history and philosophy of science probably taught nowhere else in the world.
lol, Kahneman speaks for you and the billiards of other formatory humans Nana - it's been decades since he offered anything of value to me...,
You're overgeneralizing starting with a specific set of parameters: violence committed and brain specific deformity <==> psychopathy, psychopathy <==> aggravating circumstances <==> lock and throw away the key. The handling of any other situation is much murkier and is not addressed within this body of research.
Thoroughly screen and uniformly and comprehensively cull. Everything else is merely conversation. (since the chicken coop is being run by the psychohawks, what are the odds of such a draconian policy and praxis ever being implemented?)
I really don't understand what you are saying in re: to, why we study science and not just kill ourselves. Thomas Szasz was even more controversial - in the Manufacturing of Madness. And I have yet to see any of the great minds around American Slavery go anywhere in the present debates, but repeat old mantras. Malcolm epigrams was just as powerful. You just stated an obvious, my friend. Great Afro, you still wear one? You got a David Mills and Big Don rumination that is for sure.
I really don't understand what you are saying
rotflmbao..., whew!!!!
I better update the scoreboard then:
CNu - 1 Nanakwame - 999
Pregnancy tests available OTC at CVS should incorporate the baseline genetic screen. Failure should trigger a GPS/Locator alert for prompt intervention by authorities, extreme failure should result in immediate arming and detonation of a small but lethal charge.
I don't think they've equated it to genetics yet -- only to the missing white matter brain defect detectable in an fMRI.
And in full subreal fashion, the Google Ads refer to narcissistic personality disorder... although I don't know of any physical tests to verify, these people are almost as dangerous as psychopaths.
um..., the above was tongue in cheek - see my answer below about Dr. Chorover and the limits of scientific application. That said, if 5.9 Billion gotta go, gotta go, gotta go via retroactive abortion, the probability of the development and use of GATTACA pre-emptive screens is very significant - bordering on certain.
That's why we love FRANK - adaptive, responsive, blog wallpaper...,
You guys are smart and weird, but even our stars barely make the B-team
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3W4kwDr3ciY
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