Psychopath neurobiology tells us that these people’s brains work differently, in addition to the lack of empathy, there are other unique factors that would leave a characteristic mark on this 1% of the population that, according to experts, could present clearly significant psychopathic traits.
It is possible that the moment we hear the word psychopathy, names such as Charles Manson or Ted Bundy immediately come to mind, this psychological profile is the object of fascination for many people and, therefore, films and television series that revolve around this subject. The type of character tends to arouse such interest. Evil, that is, the dark reverse of our ideal of humanity, intrigues us as much as it terrifies us.
“The world is not threatened by the wrong people, but by those who allow evil. “Albert Einstein.
However, there is one aspect that we sometimes overlook: books such as “Are you a psychopath?”, by journalist, researcher and subject matter expert Jon Ronson, reveal that almost 4% of the CEOs of large companies have psychopathic characteristics. Something very simple Psychopathic personality does not manifest itself exclusively in a serial killer or in those who induce others to kill (as Charles Manson did).
This profile also sets up a number of people with which we can interact on a daily basis, in addition, as Jon Ronson himself explains, we live in a society that (in some cases) is oriented and structured to reward this type of behaviors. that is, those who manipulate, deceive and gain power in violation of the needs and rights of others.
However, this need for domination and aggression, implicit or explicit, does not come from chance, there are some biological bases behind this that we need to know.
Before studying behavioral neurobiology, it is important to define how a person with this personality disorder works and how it works, so, and in general, we could do it as follows: a psychopath is someone who does not know or know how to love (he does not have that ability), he is someone who has no empathy, who is adept at manipulating and an excellent strata to lie.
They also know persuasive skills, often have a very characteristic charm and react in a concrete way in situations of anxiety or stress: coolly. Today, for example, we have a very valuable instrument for measuring this dimension: the psychopathy test on the hare scale. This tool allows us to evaluate the degree of psychopathy of each person, with 40 being the highest score.
This data is interesting. Whenever the study of psychopath neurobiology is referred to, it is almost obligatory to speak of a researcher. James Fallon, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Irvine, is a leading expert in psychopathic personality. Pentagon adviser and reference in the study of the criminal mind.
The funny thing is that Dr. Fallon has the “psychopathy gene” in his brain. He and his team spent several years conducting several diagnostic tests on a large number of inmates, trying to find the brain markers behind these types of disorders. At this point, the results were as disturbing as it was revealing: Dr. James Fallon’s brain was not very different from that of prisoners diagnosed with a psychopathic personality disorder.
In fact, this data was not accidental. In Dr. Fallon’s family tree we can identify up to 7 killers, for example, among them is Lizzie Borden, a woman known as the “axe killer”, who killed and pushed aside her parents. Thus, this famous neuroscientist and absolute reference in the field of psychopathy embodies an idea. Psychopath’s neurobiology tells us that the evil gene exists, but some triggers must be activated for it to manifest.
Let’s look at a series of data that will certainly allow us to better understand this idea.
An interesting 2012 study at King’s College London showed something Dr. Fallon himself had already observed in 2006 in his inmate surveys, i. e. people diagnosed with psychopathy have a lower thickness of gray matter in the anterior rostral prefrontal cortex and temporal lobes.
What does that mean? This anomaly, possibly the most characteristic of psychopath neurobiology, reveals his lack of empathy and difficulty assuming something as important as guilt.
As we have said throughout this article, psychopathic personality is fundamentally characterized by one factor: lack of empathy; however, in psychopathic neurobiology there is a small nuance: people with this profile have empathy, but only with their own person. This is something experts have seen in a Cambridge University study published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience in 2013.
For this study, MRI scans were performed on inmates diagnosed with this personality disorder, when images of different people suffering from pain were shown, their brains did not react, this only happened when the researcher asked them to imagine the same situation.
Now the most impressive thing came later. Researchers realized that when these people saw other people suffer and suffer, brain activity in the striatum increased, a very interesting part of the human brain because it is related to reward processing, motivation, pleasure and decision-making.
Thus, this unusual activity in this field has shown something very striking: psychopaths are amused by the pain of others.
More than a “evil” gene, there are genetic variants that define a greater tendency to violence, such as the CDH13 and MAOA genes. The neuroscientists of the Karolinska Institute have revealed that we can all inherit such variants from our parents (if this is the case); however, not everyone can prove them.
Psychopath neurobiology shows us that this condition usually presents as a specific developmental disorder, sometimes lack of attachment, early childhood trauma, or any situation of stress and distress in the child generates a series of biochemical changes that determine a gradual change in the brain and behavior.
The environment, creation and education are everything. Genetics definitely affects us, but it doesn’t determine us 100%. In addition, it is worth mentioning something that anthropologists and psychologists point out: violence and psychopathic behaviors are declining.
Three centuries ago, violent and aggressive behaviors defined much of our society, currently this behavior is in decline, even if it refuses to disappear: 1% of our population continues to show the trait of psychopathy.