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When an accident occurs, a group of onlookers immediately gathers. Series about serial killers are very popular. We sometimes shed a tear when the police catch the perpetrator of brutal murders. And, interestingly, it speaks volumes about us… good. This is how a healthy brain works. We talk to Dr. Wojciech Glac from the Faculty of Biology at the University of Gdańsk.
- A psychopath is a person who experiences less empathy, anxiety and fear than the general public. This, in turn, predisposes him to commit crimes. May not be afraid of punishment, feel no remorse
- There are psychopaths among serial killers. The more intelligent ones – because this is not the rule at all. Not every psychopath has a high IQ
- By observing the operation of the human brain, we are able to some extent to determine whether a person is good or bad
- Respond before it’s too late. Get to know your Health Index!
- You can find more such stories on the TvoiLokony home page
What does a psychopath’s brain look like?
Agnieszka Mazur-Puchała, Medonet: Doctor, can we tell by looking at the human brain what kind of person is?
Dr. Wojciech Glac, neurobiologist, employee of the Faculty of Biology at the University of Gdańsk: To some extent, we can. Since the basis of our personality is the brain and the processes taking place in it, by observing the structure, and especially the functioning of the brain in certain situations, we can learn a lot about a person. Brain processes, the activity of individual structures, can tell us what inclinations someone has, how strongly they feel emotions, how their common sense functions, i.e. those components that define us as people.
Which areas of the brain should we look at to see personality traits? Or maybe it is possible to “see” whether someone is good or bad?
Since emotions are an important part of our personality, we should check how the limbic system, i.e. the emotional system, reacts. On the other hand, we should evaluate the activity of the cerebral cortex, especially the prefrontal cortex, which controls emotions, analyzes the situation, plans and controls behavior. And whether someone is good or bad, we can simplify to the power of empathy, so we should evaluate the activity of one of the most important structures for empathy, i.e. the island cortex, as well as the orbital cortex, cingulate gyrus and parietal cortex, which together with the cortex islands are important elements of the system responsible for our social behavior.
Your interests are largely focused on murderers and psychopaths. Let’s start with the latter. Who is a psychopath?
Psychopathy, or a specific personality disorder, can basically be reduced to two deficits – empathy and fear and anxiety. These irregularities result in further ones – insensitivity to the needs and emotions of others, lack of guilt, selfishness, a tendency to manipulate, lying, a deficit in learning from mistakes or a tendency to risk.
Does anything in the psychopath’s brain point to these deficits? What does a psychopath’s brain actually look like?
On the surface, it looks completely normal. Only when we see it in action do we see that the areas responsible for generating fear, anxiety and empathy do not function fully well. These differences concern, on the one hand, the amygdala, the structures responsible for fear and anxiety, and, on the other, the cortex of the island, which is necessary for empathy. The amygdala is also of great importance in developing empathy, especially when we are in direct contact with another human being. The reduced activity of these and several other structures, and sometimes also a reduction in their size, is probably responsible for deficits in empathy and anxiety.
I wonder what the research work in this area looks like. How is the brain screened for psychopathy?
Imagine being placed in a device to study brain activity, such as a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine. Thanks to this, it is possible to illustrate the work of our brain when we watch a movie presenting, for example, a suffering, sad or crying person. Imaging the brain shows how we respond to this situation. An undisturbed person will show significant activity of the amygdala, the cortex of the island and the prefrontal cortex, which allow him to recognize the emotions of the person from the film, translate this emotion onto himself and become aware of all that will allow us to consciously sympathize with the sadness of that person.
Depending on the severity of the disorder, of course, psychopaths will be less active in all of these structures. Psychopathy can also be identified on the basis of a special questionnaire, with appropriately selected questions allowing for the diagnosis of the deficits that I mentioned earlier. While the researcher who asks the question can be deceived, the apparatus that studies the brain activity cannot be deceived too much – if someone lacks empathy, he will not create it when prompted.
Is the predisposition to commit crimes visible in the brain?
It happens that psychopaths become serial killers. This is the second area of your interest. Can the makings of a murderer be seen in the brain?
Can be seen. Although these are not traits that determine that someone will become a murderer, they are traits that only – however it sounds – predispose. These predispositions, under the right conditions, can make such a person a likely murderer. The predisposition to crime is certainly the deficit of empathy related to the cortex of the island, the deficit of empathy related to the amygdala and the deficit of control over emotions and behavior related to the prefrontal cortex. As you can easily guess, empathy and fear are the main inhibitors of our aspirations to do evil, because either we do not want to feel guilty and so-called. remorse, or we fear punishment, e.g. imprisonment or social rejection.
Of course, psychopathy does not mean that someone will be a murderer, but it is something that predisposes you. It is much easier to kill when there is no resistance arising from either empathy or fear or fear of punishment. For this reason, murderers are much more common among psychopaths, especially multiple serial killers. There are, of course, also other brain abnormalities that lead to violent criminal behavior, such as reduced activity in the prefrontal cortex and an associated often reduced intellectual potential and the ability to control one’s emotions and behavior. In addition, what researchers often pay attention to is also a reduction in serotonin levels in the brain. Serotonin is extremely important in inhibiting aggression. Without it, emotions, including aggression, have a much easier task to guide our actions. After all, an action committed in affect becomes a source of trouble, not only for the victim, but also for the perpetrator.
Are these deficits that can be filled in some way? Is there any surgery or procedure that could “restore” the murderer’s or the psychopath’s brain to “normal”?
As for psychopaths, it doesn’t seem so much. Any attempts to treat psychopaths end up with the fact that they only acquire new competences and are even better able to control or manipulate people. Island bark activity cannot be easily enhanced from the outside. It is similar with the amygdala. It is not easy to stimulate it, so at the moment we do not have pharmacological or psychological possibilities to restore this “normality”.
Of course, a psychopath can – and often does – learn to function according to norms, but this is not due to the natural mechanisms that are responsible for our pro-social behavior. Rather, it is a cool profit-and-loss balance – in other words, a psychopath must pay off to live by the norms. Provided, of course, that they are not driven by a strong need for revenge, compensation for their own losses, or some crime-provoking vision to which they become slaves.
On the other hand, when it comes to serotonin, its deficits, which are sometimes found in people committing violent crimes, can be supplemented. In the same way as they are supplemented, for example in the case of depression. In Poland, it is not done, but in some places around the world, pilot studies are carried out during which criminals are given serotonin reuptake inhibitors as an adjunct to psychological therapy. This combination of psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy gives good results, provided, of course, that the offender wants to undergo treatment.
And isn’t it that the brain produces connections of neurons under the influence of science? In the case of a psychopath, such a mechanism will not work?
These connections are formed, but not all learning mechanisms occur to the same degree as they do in non-disturbed people. Imagine a situation like this: the lady is still a child, she is playing in a sandbox. There is a quarrel, and children, as you know, do not fully control their emotions. You take a spatula and hit your friend in the face with it. The girl starts crying. When you see your crying friend, you feel discomfort due to your empathy. You’re not right with the fact that you hurt her. What you feel then is nothing more than the punishment that our empathy inflicts on us. And under the influence of this punishment, this violent behavior is coded as unfavorable and thus we code in the brain the reaction of avoiding a given behavior in the past. As you said, it is just about making connections between neurons in the brain. But in order for them to arise, i.e. for a given behavior to associate us with something inappropriate, we need empathy and this unpleasant feeling.
If someone feels weaker guilt, or punishment, these connections will not develop as easily or will not develop at all. Moving on, once we have a coded avoidance response, the thing that tells us to refrain from repeating a coded inappropriate behavior is fear. Fear of punishment, of loss. In this case, this punishment is remorse, malaise, guilt. Given that the psychopath has a lower level of empathy and anxiety, it is easy to imagine that he creates these associations poorly and is not strongly repelled from such behaviors. There is no resistance. His learning from mistakes is inadequate, incomplete or, in extreme cases, absent at all.
There is a belief in society that the psychopath is particularly intelligent. Is it really like that?
No, it’s a myth. Of course, there are very intelligent psychopaths, but their average intellectual level is similar to that observed in the general population of undisturbed people. There is, of course, a large spread here, as is the case among people. Correlation studies show that the higher the psychopathic index, the lower the IQ. It is not a strong correlation, rather weak, but it is certainly not that the more psychopathic someone is, the more above-average intelligence they have.
Why do we “like” serial killers?
Among these publicly known psychopaths, there were some whose IQs were below average?
We don’t really know such psychopaths. We mainly associate those who were serial killers. Those with lower IQs tend to have relatively short careers – they commit crimes, go to jail, and we don’t hear about them anymore. In turn, serial killers, whose intelligence allows them to avoid capture by the police for a long time, become famous. They even become icons of pop culture.
Exactly. There seems to be some strange mechanism at work here. There are tons of people who like to read about serial killers. Their stories are fascinating in a way. And this is about brutal crimes …
What really fascinates us is evil and dead bodies. When a car crash occurs, a crowd of onlookers immediately gathers to take a close look at the victim. We have a team of experts analyzing the causes of the accident, and when it turns out that no one was hurt or only broke an arm, some leave disappointed. I’m exaggerating a little, of course, but not that much. You could say that, in a way, we get some kind of pleasure when we look at something like that. Perhaps it is evolutionary – watching someone’s failures, including extreme, drastic, or death-ending ones, is something that, in a sense, teaches us.
I have my own theory about this fascination with serial killers, but it – I will emphasize right away – has not been scientifically verified. It seems to me that this is about the dominance serial killers have over their victims. She is a reward for the brain. Whether we’re good or bad, power is something you enjoy. This is a reward for the brain. Observing someone who dominates another person has an advantage over him, it causes in our brains to stimulate the system that is responsible for feeling pleasure. That deal is the reward system. The one who dominates feels the reward, and so does the one who looks at him. Ironically, on the basis of empathy, which we do not lack, and so do we lack a psychopath.
So this may indicate a properly functioning brain?
Yes. Moreover, it is valuable because it allows us to learn from someone’s successes as well as from failures. That is why we are interested in both. However, what is important, while watching a movie or reading about the crimes of a serial, psychopathic killer, we do not only feel pleasure. We also have compassion for the victims. A drama is taking place in our prefrontal cortex – we have conflicting opinions, impressions, we don’t know what to do with it, we have a serious dissonance. It fascinates us and disgusts us at the same time. We are fascinated by the absolute domination of the psychopath and hurt by the victims. So, as long as we have such mixed feelings, all is well, and if we do not have them, then that’s the problem. Which may indicate an empathy disorder. And perhaps we ourselves have a more or less psychopathic level, since another psychopath inspires us more than scares us.
I am trying to relate it to myself. I happened to write about serial killers and I did it as if “from the side”. Describing but not feeling sympathetic. What mechanism was working here?
It can be compared to a situation where a doctor, after several years of work, when dealing with seriously ill patients, does not react as emotionally as at the beginning of his practice. We get used to certain situations, we react to them less and less. If you often write about crimes and psychopaths, it does not make such an impression on you anymore. On the other hand, it is very often the case that we know the criminal perfectly well – the murderer, the psychopath, his name, past, face, etc., and at the same time we do not know anything about the victims – they are anonymous. This anonymity is something that does not help our empathy. Of course, we can imagine these victims and, on the basis of our imagination, feel their suffering, and on the basis of this, abhor the perpetrator. But it takes effort. We need to fuel empathy by imagining what the victim looked like, what was on her face.
And the story of the psychopath focuses on him, often showing the world only from his perspective. And the effect is that, paradoxically, we start to live with him, he becomes close. Our brain here works according to the principle that the more we see someone, the closer they seem to us. After an hour and a half film about a psychopath, a multi-page book or a series, we can even have tears in our eyes when our hero is captured by the police.
And the case of Madzia’s mother from a few years ago? We saw Magda in only one photo. And society literally lynched her mother.
The fact that it was about a child played a big role here. We have greater empathy towards children, even if we are not parents ourselves. Children are high in the hierarchy of empathy. Public opinion is another matter – if there are any common opinions, people start to take them as their own. Our brain is guided by them, just like in the case of election polls or advertisements. If we hear that a thousand people have bought a product, we think it is good. The prevailing opinion frees us from the need to make our own judgment – our brain takes shortcuts. After all, so many people cannot be wrong, so why waste energy. If a thousand people said that Magda’s mother is bad, she is simply bad.
Also read:
- Decapitation of a newborn, scarves sewn in the stomach – stories of medical malpractice from Polish hospitals
- The Polish hospital confused the children. The twin sisters were separated
- They swore to heal their patients. They brought them death
- Difficult beginnings of an autopsy. Anatomists invested in “armored” coffins