Research Detects Abnormalities in the Brains of Psychopaths

Psychopaths who are convicted of violent offenses such as rapes and murders are indeed different from an average person after a new study found that they have abnormalities in brains of psychopaths. The study was conducted by researchers at King’s College London who scanned the brains of 66 men, 17 of whom were psychopaths with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), using an magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine. Of the remaining 49 participants, 27 also suffered from ASPD but were not psychopaths while the remaining 22 were healthy non-offenders.

The researchers found that the brains of psychopaths had lesser amount of grey matter in the regions known as anterior rostral prefrontal cortex and temporal poles compared to the other two groups.

“Men with the syndrome of psychopathy fail to learn from their experience of punishment and to experience self-conscious emotions such as guilt, remorse, or embarrassment, which facilitate desistance from the use of inappropriate behaviors, most significantly aggression and violence”, lead researcher Nigel Blackwood said.

Source-Medindia