Each of us at least once broke down because of a trifle, which turned out to be the “last straw” in a series of troubles. However, for some, outbursts of uncontrolled aggression occur regularly, and on such occasions that seem insignificant to others. What is the reason for this behaviour?
Today, almost every second celebrity is diagnosed with «uncontrollable outbursts of anger». Naomi Campbell, Michael Douglas, Mel Gibson — the list goes on. All of them went to the doctors with this problem.
To understand the causes of inadequate aggression, American psychiatrists conducted a study using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The study involved 132 volunteers of both sexes aged 18 to 55 years. Of these, 42 had a pathological tendency to outbursts of rage, 50 suffered from other mental disorders, and 40 were healthy.
The tomograph showed differences in the structure of the brain in people from the first group. The density of the white matter of the brain, which connects two areas — the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for self-control, and the parietal lobe, associated with speech and information processing, was less than in healthy participants in the experiment. As a result, the communication channels were disrupted in patients, through which different parts of the brain “exchange” information with each other.
A person misunderstands the intentions of others and eventually «explodes»
What do these findings mean? People who are unable to control aggression often misunderstand the intentions of others. They feel that they are being bullied, even when they are not. At the same time, they do not notice the words and gestures that show that no one is attacking them.
Disruption of communication between different areas of the brain leads to the fact that a person cannot correctly assess the situation and the intentions of others and, as a result, “explodes”. At the same time, he himself may think that he is only defending himself.
“It turns out that uncontrolled aggression is not just “bad behavior,” says one of the authors of the study, psychiatrist Emil Coccaro, “it has real biological causes that we have yet to study in order to find treatments.”