Psychopath neuroscience Flashcards
Does everyone have the MAOA gene?
While almost all humans have a functional MAO-A gene, MAO-A deficiency has been seen in at least 5 families with Brunner syndrome. Given that MAO-A degrades amine neurotransmitters, gene variants could affect a person’s personality or behaviour.
What does MAOA l mean?
Previous literature suggests that one of those conditions may be individual variability in genetic alleles, such that individuals with a low activity form of the gene that encodes monoamine oxidase A (MAOA-L) will be more likely to react with aggression to challenge
What percent of psychopaths are male?
Psychopaths exist across cultures and ethnic groups and at an estimated frequency of about 1 percent of the population for males and 0.3–0.7 percent for females. Some researchers challenge these numbers, citing bias toward male manifestations in diagnostic instruments and methods.
What gene do psychopaths have?
Six genes have be shown to influence the risk of developing psychopathy: ANKK1, DRD2, DRD4, MAOA, COMT,and 5-HTTLPR. Individual expression of psychopathy related phenotypes depend on which combination of alleles are inherited in addition to environmental factors.
Brains of psychopaths
A new study has shown that psychopathic people have a bigger striatum area in their brain. Neuroscientists using MRI scans discovered that psychopathic people have a 10% larger striatum, a cluster of neurons in the subcortical basal ganglia of the forebrain, than regular people.
What is a psychopaths brain like?
The study showed that psychopaths have reduced connections between the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), the part of the brain responsible for sentiments such as empathy and guilt, and the amygdala, which mediates fear and anxiety
How does antisocial personality disorder affect the prefrontal cortex?
It has been shown that individuals with ASPD have reduced cortical thickness in regions like the superior frontal gyrus, orbitofrontal cortex, and middle frontal gyrus, along with the insular cortex, precuneus, and triangularis (Jiang 2016).
