Biological explanation: Neural

Question 1

What is a neural explanation?

Answer 1

Dysfunction of the brain and nervous system.

Question 2

What is much of this evidence based on?

Answer 2

Studies into individuals with anti-social personality disorder (reduced emotional responses, lack of empathy)

Question 3

What part of the brain regulates emotional behaviour?

Answer 3

Pre-frontal cortex

Question 4

What did Raine find in the pre-frontal cortex of those with APD compared to control groups?

Answer 4

11% reduction in grey matter.

Question 5

What is a mirror neuron?

Answer 5

A special brain cell which is activated in response to personal actions or by watching the actions of others.

Question 6

When can people with APD experience empathy?

Answer 6

When asked to

Question 7

Why is the idea of those with APD only being able to experience empathy when told, different to typical behaviour?

Answer 7

People with APD have a neural switch, meaning they can turn their empathy on and off, but ‘normal’ people always have it on.

Question 8

One strength is that there is evidence for the role of the pre-frontal cortex in offending.

Answer 8

• Kandel and Freed provide support for frontal lobe damage causing antisocial behaviour.
• They reviewed evidence of FL damage and found people with this were impulsive, emotional and couldn’t learn from mistakes.
• Suggests damage to the FL could be a reason behind offending behaviour.

Question 9

One limitation is that there may be other factors which cause APD, leading to offending.

Answer 9

• Farrington studied men who scored high for APD and found their childhood experiences could be a factor to their offending.
• Some had experienced being raised by a convicted parent whilst others had been neglected.
• Suggests that there are other variables to consider.