NEWS > HEALTH > STUDY SHOWS PSYCHOPATHS NOT RIGHT IN THE HEAD

STUDY SHOWS PSYCHOPATHS NOT RIGHT IN THE HEAD

August 10 2009

London, U.K – For centuries scientists, doctors, philosophers, and law makers have had various and sometimes opposing viewpoints on what makes criminals and how best to deal with them. From original sin to Elvis Presley the theories behind what drives one person to commit crime and one person to obey the law have been as
abundant as the deeds of the criminals themselves. Though we may never fully understand the makeup of criminals the growing knowledge of how the human brain functions has given hope that we may someday gain greater insight into the way personality forms and how we might prevent violent crime.

Now a new study from a group of London scientists has revealed new details into the makeup of the mind of psychopaths and shown definitively that violent offenders have faulty brain connections. Science has long focused on the idea that violent and sexual offenders may have something wrong with their brains but this study has provided the first clear evidence linking violence and just not being right in the head.

“Essentially what we found is that the connections in the psychopaths were not as good as the connections in the non-psychopaths. I would describe them as roads between the two areas -- and we found that in the psychopaths, the roads had potholes and weren't very well maintained,” said lead researcher Dr. Michael Craig. “The most exciting question now...is when do the potholes come -- are people born with them, do they develop early in life, or are they a consequence of something else? Up until recently the technology hasn't been available to look at the connections between those two brain areas in any meaningful way.”

It’s not immediately clear how much was spent on the study but it is believed to have been quite a bit.

“Most people, I mean just as a result of common sense, would naturally stray towards
the idea that crazy people just aren’t right in the head in some way. Now though we
have real hard evidence indicating just that. Now people whether they are in the scientific community or otherwise can rest assured knowing that bad guys have something wrong with their brains,” said Scrape TV Science analyst Dr. Howard Poe. “Whether it’s violent psychopaths, mass murderers, child rapists, or any other of the range of violent criminals that tend to stalk our streets we now know definitively that they are a little off. This doesn’t get us much closer to actually preventing crime or stopping these criminals before they commit violent acts but it at least gives us an answer to an age old question.”

The study did stress that this new data cannot yet be used for diagnostic purposes due to it not yet being clear when the brain connections might start to fail which unfortunately renders the study more informational than usable.

“The real benefit might be amongst the rest of society who tends t follow the law. They can now feel free to call people crazy and not have any kind of guilt. That will alleviate a lot of the tension between criminals and law-abiding citizens and potentially allow for a stronger relationship between the two parties. While its two early to say that may in fact open new possibilities in the criminal prosecution field,” continued Poe. “Unfortunately it could also lead to more incidents of violence. I mean the last thing one should say to a person with serious mental problems is that they are crazy. I can foresee that becoming a whole new kind of problem that will be a lot more difficult to solve.”

The study does suggest that people refrain from calling people crazy to avoid potential issues.

Lauren Hebert, Health Correspondent

NEWS > HEALTH > STUDY SHOWS PSYCHOPATHS NOT RIGHT IN THE HEAD