Psychopaths have Bigger Striatum area in Brain

[Tom.G]

The striatum... coordinates numerous elements of cognition, including motor and action planning, decision-making, motivation, reinforcement, and reward perception.

Psychopaths, or those with psychopathic qualities, are people who have an egotistical and antisocial disposition. This is often characterized by a lack of guilt for their actions, a lack of empathy for others, and, in some cases, criminal tendencies.

...psychopathic people have a 10% larger striatum, a cluster of neurons in the subcortical basal ganglia of the forebrain, than regular people. This represents a clear biological distinction between psychopaths and non-psychopathic people.

Popular article:
https://scitechdaily.com/scientists...erence-between-psychopaths-and-normal-people/

Research article (paywall):
https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2022.03.006

Cheers,
Tom

 

[jedishrfu]

Which brings to mind this article about and book by Prof Dutton on The Wisdom of Psychopaths

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/wisdom-from-psychopaths/

 

[atyy]

And it reminds me of this:

Neuroscientist: 'I discovered I was a psychopath'

 

[Laroxe]

I have to say, whenever I see things like this, specifically related to psychopathy, it brings into focus why such a large amount of published work in neuroscience is labelled as neurotrash. Its obviously true that there is a small group of people, whose behaviour is so extreme and damaging, that they attract a great deal of public attention. This means that exploiting the known links between brain and behaviour, provides an attractive explanation, that this is caused by a biological abnormality, it makes such behaviours understandable and reduces anxiety.

Unfortunately, such explanations are really just simplistic fictions, the good research that is available finds little consistency in findings in the results from the whole range of areas of study. These findings, not being helped by the lack of clear definitions, poor measurement tools and in some cases the motives of researchers.

Despite the influence this idea has, it is worth recognising that psychopathy is not formally recognised as a mental health disorder, its primary function is in the labelling of criminal behaviour and in the justification of sentencing.

The two links discuss the problems of making sense of the research, it in many ways reinforces the view that we can only understand people by taking apart the complex web of associations that lead to particular outcomes, simple cause - effect associations are not as common as we like to think.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7219694/
https://www.apa.org/monitor/2022/03/ce-corner-psychopathy