Post by healthy11 on Jul 20, 2015 21:22:06 GMT -5
finance.yahoo.com/news/scientist-studies-psychopaths-found-one-202500097.html
James Fallon, a neuroscientist at the UC Irvine School of Medicine, (not the comedian) is an expert on the minds of psychopaths.
In the course of studying them, he also discovered he was one.
The article was fascinating, in that it shows PET scans of people with and without the diagnosis (Psychopaths appear to have low levels of activity in a region of the brain located towards its center at the base of the frontal and temporal lobes. Scientists believe this region, called the orbital cortex, is involved in regulating our emotions and impulses and also plays a role in morality and aggression.)
The article also brings up a possible genetic component: The gene is called MAO-A (monoamine oxidase A), and it's pretty controversial — for obvious reasons. Known as a "warrior gene," it's responsible for making a protein that breaks down certain types of chemical messengers. These messengers control our thinking and behavior, and the ones that the warrior gene affects include dopamine, noradrenalin and serotonin, which are all linked to our mood. The article goes on to say, however, that nature as well as nurture appear to impact a person's outcome.
James Fallon, a neuroscientist at the UC Irvine School of Medicine, (not the comedian) is an expert on the minds of psychopaths.
In the course of studying them, he also discovered he was one.
The article was fascinating, in that it shows PET scans of people with and without the diagnosis (Psychopaths appear to have low levels of activity in a region of the brain located towards its center at the base of the frontal and temporal lobes. Scientists believe this region, called the orbital cortex, is involved in regulating our emotions and impulses and also plays a role in morality and aggression.)
The article also brings up a possible genetic component: The gene is called MAO-A (monoamine oxidase A), and it's pretty controversial — for obvious reasons. Known as a "warrior gene," it's responsible for making a protein that breaks down certain types of chemical messengers. These messengers control our thinking and behavior, and the ones that the warrior gene affects include dopamine, noradrenalin and serotonin, which are all linked to our mood. The article goes on to say, however, that nature as well as nurture appear to impact a person's outcome.
