On his head: With the departure Psychopaths

A study conducted on prisoners with a diagnosis of ...

Just to mention, that the terms ... We have so called almost any personality disorder, whereas in the west - a definite associated with a set of specific characteristics. The main feature of the ... Due to the almost complete ... In this article we will talk about psychopathy in this sense.

Until now, even the etiology, the origin of psychopathy remains a complete mystery. It is believed that some ( fortunately small) percentage of psychopaths is always present in society. In some cases, they are able to adapt quite effectively, by learning to identify external signs other people's emotions - and just looks to imitate their. But more often they are incapable of any meaningful social life, become outcasts and criminals. And although there are now detailed psychological tests, allowing a high degree of accuracy to distinguish the psychopath from the common man, the lack of neurophysiological mechanisms of empathy in psychopaths have investigated.

Some light on this issue casts a recent study by the group of Professor Michael Koenigs (Michael Koenigs). Scientists were able to show that a decrease in the number of psychopaths links between ventromedial prefrontal cortex ( VMPK ) of the brain - an area associated with the experience of a number of emotions, risk assessment and decision-making - and the amygdala, a key for the formation of the major emotions, including the principal - and fun .

The researchers turned to a prison in Wisconsin, and took two groups of prisoners - one consisted of 20 mentally normal, the second - the same ones as a result of a complex test recognized psychopaths. Their brain structure and activity of the neurons were studied using functional MRI and diffusion, respectively. Indeed, the pictures showed dMRT reduced relative to the norm structural integration of the white fibers that connect these areas - the so -called cerebellar nuclear path. In turn, the fMRI images showed a reduced activity of the joint VMPK and tonsils.

In fact, the author was the first to clearly demonstrate that the brain is different from the psychopaths of the brain experiencing normal human emotions on the structural and functional level. It turns out that the cause of disturbances of normal emotional life - loss of coordination between the two regions of the brain necessary for the formation of emotions. This conclusion is indirectly confirmed by previous studies of Koenigs and his colleagues, in which it was shown that the characteristics of decision-making people, psychopaths surprisingly coincide with that show people with traumatic ventromedial prefrontal cortex. At this same time evidence is clear and clearly indicate: the psychopath really is not all right. In the truest sense of the word.