Professor James Fallon from University of California, Irvine explains the beginnings of his work studying the brains of criminals and murders. Would his work prove the existence of a signature brain profile of a serial killer or are there other factors to consider?
Jim Fallon recently made a disquieting discovery: A member of his family has some of the biological traits of a psychopathic killer. "These results will cause some problems at the next family party," he said, reviewing the data on his laptop in his backyard. Fallon had already been studying the brains of psychopathic killers for years when his mother told him that he comes from a long line of murderers. Is he one of them?
After a PET scan, Professor Jim Fallon made a shocking discovery about his own brain - that he had the neurological and genetic correlates of psychopathy. However, he is not concerned by the findings and believes that his positive experiences in childhood negated the genetic susceptibility to violence and emotional issues.
References:
What's on Jim Fallon's Mind? A Family Secret That Has Been Murder to Figure Out - WSJ.com http://on.wsj.com/9CUbjG
A Neuroscientist Uncovers A Dark Secret - NPR http://n.pr/V2LMNl
Jim Fallon: Exploring the mind of a killer | Video on TED.com http://bit.ly/V2LNAI
Three Ingredients for Murder: Neuroscientist James Fallon on psychopaths - YouTube http://bit.ly/V2M2M9
Comments from Twitter:
Gia Sison MD @giasison: Wow To Watch! Great share Ves!!!!
Dear Ves,
ReplyDeleteThis wouldn't be the case, of confusion, between cause and consequence ?
For an instance, the Pet-Scan cannot be just diagnosing an anatomic trait, that was built due to a sort of different circunstances ?
Better yet - does he built his subject analysis, just comparing the brain activity of murderers to what sort of people ?
There are not any kind of work, that maybe had the same configuration ? (like, butchers, soldiers, surgeons, firefighters and so on ?