And this is another reason why a strong program of early child care can be so beneficial to society.

I've been reading about independent studies regarding a group of mental illnesses that were genetically based. Not everyone who has the genes seem to be affected.

This was a good article until it went all religious at the end with the "free will" nonsense.

I have a relative who is a sociopath. Because of that, I am quite sensitive to them--when I connect with one, I feel the hair on the back of my neck bristle. I worked in public welfare for 40+ years and rarely ran into sociopaths, but when I did, I could feel the hair on the back of my neck. The two that I recall were very manipulative and very slick about it. Neither of them had any history of violence, but no one, including family members, wanted anything to do with them. Where I have mostly run into sociopaths was not among the post prison welfare population but among the higher levels of the business world and governmental agencies.

There are plenty of psychopaths who are destructive to society that come from loving families.

I think it's just as probable that his particular brand manifested as "pro-social" as it was that his environment was responsible.

First incongruity in the article is it is dated 2013 and talks about a neuroscientist that looked over his medical scan in 2005 so I am not sure about anything regarding this article.

But to the point here, he is professor of psychiatry and human behavior and emeritus professor of anatomy and neurobiology in the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine.

Hence and no insult intended my father was a teacher for 20 years so I am personally aware of the potential of teacheritis and had an uncle judge for 20 years quantified to have judgeitis and James in the article is a teacher, psychiatrist and Doctor, the tendencies of such people is that they have authoritarian brain development quantified as authoritarianitis from being in a position of authority over others the intensive take charge perspective of the person causes cellular generation and suppression from recurring chemical hormone changes from being (in charge), the condition leads to the brain loose and gain its synapse connections organically altering to fulfill its role being that it dominates the people it is over and hence looses its characteristics of empathy, morality and self-control for the reason the brain is in dominance mode from rounding up and directing individuals under their authority. So James for his position causes the following symptoms of recurring patterns reconstructing his brain (called conditioned synapse patterning) when he retires he will continue with hte brains being trained and changed by treating most everyone the same as his students hence the (itis) after the career of the aforementioned. He can likely regenerate his empathy by following exercises to increase his empathy so long as the exercise does not utilize decision making to cure the scene or exposure for its generating empathy. So James when you catch yourself analyzing psychologically anything stop yourself (after you retire) and lighten up and just listen and give no advice but try instead to remember the time before you learned super analytical psychology (probably impossible) and lighen up and make small talk without imparting any at all superlatives to cure or analyze. In the mean time good that your mentioning the whole of the comparison of scans and apparent misuse they could be put to potentially in 0bama/Trump care to have you sequestered as a pre-crime risk. The condition of your brain you so generously allow us to view is maybe not unusual, however I should warn you that your a highly esteemed teacher in a university and the government may consider your honest views dangerous form your being profiled as a generally good guy who would not for example support Sharia law, pre-crime treatments and the like, well being a threat you may be being exposed to being decommissioned, Google look "targeted individuals , implants and directed energy attacks and microwave attacks.
Dear Reader,
For those of you who innocently do not believe that the government is actively experimenting on the public at large may I draw yor attention to the following :
SPEECH BEFORE THE UNITED STATES SENATE
“Mr. GLENN. Madam President, if I approached any Senator here and I said, ‘‘You did
not know it, but the last time they went to the doctor or went to the hospital, your wife or
your husband or your daughter or your son became the subject of a medical experiment
that they were not even told about. They were given medicine, they were given pills, they
were given radiation, they were given something and were not even told about this,
were not even informed about it, yet they are under some experimental research that
might possibly do them harm—maybe some good will come out of it, but maybe it will
do them harm also—but they do not know about it,’’ people would laugh at that and
say that is ridiculous. That cannot possibly happen in this country. Yet, that very
situation is what this piece of legislation is supposed to address....”
---- United States Senator John Glenn.
“Congressional Record S645 January 22,
1997”, prior to becoming a Senator he
was the first American to circle the Earth
in outer space in 1962.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...

How do we know Fallon is telling the truth? Maybe he is just trying to manipulate us?

I think I saw this Twilight Zone episode

.

"He had to break the blinding..." Yes he would think that wouldn't he.

I think the most telling thing about this article is that fact that genes, apart from environmental factors, are not decisive. Sorry, be we are not "born this way" -- your childhood and environment matters. Genetic determinism is a cop-out for people pushing an agenda.

We are born with many traits. Please elaborate or I'm sniffing an agenda from you.

Facts are agenda-free. Sniff all you want.

"Neuroscientist Who Discovered He Was a Psychopath"
It comes with the territory.

I have this same polymorphism (confirmed through DNA testing) and I wouldn't consider myself aggressive either. I do tend towards antisocial behavior somewhat, but I also wouldn't consider myself a sociopath. I do struggle with empathy for people, but strangely enough, I do not struggle with empathy for animals and even as a young child was extra protective of them. To counter my empathy struggles with other people, I constantly have to turn situations around in my head and ask myself how I would feel if it were happening to me. I got accused of being self-involved somewhat growing up, but I think that's unavoidable as I have to do so much reflecting to be able to interact in a "normal" and compassionate way. I was also well-loved as a child which I think protected me as well. Under stressful situations, I get into an emotional whiteout and I cannot tell what the other person is feeling nearly as well. I have had a very hard time with friendships and relationships being considerate of things like meeting times, regular contact, etc. not because I don't care how they feel, but because I don't realize how they feel. All that being said, I have a happy long-term relationship, a stable career as an engineer, and long term friends and I truly care about other people.

Excuse me. How about the obvious possibility that the "science" here is mostly nonsense?

First off, brains rewire themselves all the time, so the MRI and other techniques have LIMITED use. Secondly you never know what the person will be like till you meet them and do a long term interview and background check. Scans don't mean much.

The most sense in this entire thread.

Very interesting article, though I'm taking it with a grain (or, rather, a teaspoon) of salt due to a few of what I'd consider to be dubious ethical points. It made me think about the child of some past friends, though. This little girl had, so far as I could tell, the most complete lack of empathy possible. She literally could not seem to understand why, say, she shouldn't hit someone or take what she wanted or hurt a pet to make them "do funny things," as she put it. She had loving parents whom I saw frequently, a younger sister and a good home; but she didn't seem able to grasp that hurting others was wrong-- I always got the feeling that nobody else was quite real to her. I know that the parents gave their dog away after a bit; they then moved and I lost track of the family. The child would be in her teens now, and I've often wondered how she's been doing.

This is untrue, serial killers are made, not born. Our environment and our decisions shapes us to who we are. It can over-write our traits early on in our lives.There is no biological evil.

i loved it

I truly like to see side by side the functional MRI of murderers James Holmes from Colorado and Jason Dalton of Kalamazoo, Michigan along with Mark Zuckerberg of FaceBook and Bill Gates of Microsoft who are quite well-known for their altruism.

This just goes to show, it's better to do the right thing for the wrong reasons than the wrong thing for the right reasons.

Sociopaths- made by the environment- product of society hint. Socio

Psychopaths- born with it . Genetic. Pyscho hint. Brain

Thank you.

I know a lot of psychopaths and I can assure you the stuff they do is automatic thinking.
And I call it automatic thinking because I've noticed completely unrelated psycho's do the exact same thing as a result from given circumstances. They mistakenly think they are crafty and cunning and inventive but it is just automatic deviousness. In the same way a wild animal would automatically do something because of instincts.

A psychopath would have no problem destroying someone else's life if it meant a slight gain for the psychopath.
I know of about 50 things psychopaths do that a normal person would find despicable.

"Regardless of the detrimental effect it might have on others, what can I do to make myself benefit from this situation?" -- psychopath

Most psychopaths are not serial killers. They are ruthless bankers, politicians and surgeons. Lack of empathy is an advantage in many fields within a competitive society.

And it will lead to our eventual downfall.

And unfortunately this competitive unemphatic dog-eat-dog world is being vigorously promoted by the very monsters who would benefit from it the most.

How many cancers did and are those PET scans causing? CT scans now cause 20% of US cancers, as taught at Stanford Medical School. The heart damage from radioactive scans are never mentioned, but all the doctors know about it.

I agree he shows no concern for the people involved. I think doctors and especially researchers have a higher than normal rate of being sociopaths.

OR... Maybe he IS a serial killer yet to be discovered guilty of many unsolved murders and maybe - (pretty much like many other famous psychopats) - by now he is laughing at everybody else, stupid people, who would never guess who he really is despite all the evidence he is providing.

Aren't we all? or could be? Perhaps you and many others have a flawed idea about the human condition.

I've been involved with a psychopath and he has never killed anyone or been arrested. But these people are dangerous in a different way due to what they do mentally to the people around them. I was diagnosed with PTSD because of this person and I know of others who he has caused significant damage to. In fact, I told him someone will commit suicide because of him one day. He did not care. Psychopaths do not care who they hurt. They are very dangerous people, especially because they don't look like what people think of as a psychopath. They are often succesful, attractive, well dressed, etc., which makes them even more evil because you don't expect what's coming.

Thank you for saying it so well. My daughter, too, has PTSD from her psychopathic stepmother who was in her life for 10 years when she was a child. The woman tormented her on a daily basis, in subtle and cruel ways, and created ways to humiliate her, place her in emotionally impossible positions, or actively put her in physical danger. My daughter remembers being terrified of her "cold"eyes, and that she felt "hunted", that she was prey and the stepmother was like an animal dressed in human clothing. No empathy, pleasure in my daughter's pain, needing control, with a slick presentation to the world. Robert Hare, Ph.D., is a psychologist who has studied and written about psychopathy for his professional life and developed the reliable , "gold-standard" test used to diagnose psychopathy (Hare Psychopathy Checklist). He has now come to the conclusion that psychopaths are a sub-species of human. My daughter agrees.

why are you involved with a psychopath?

They are so sweet and amazing when you meet them...wine and roses...until you are hooked. You don't even see it coming. Your friends think you've met a dream man. Scary stuff. Been there. Didn't date for 7 years afterward, was too afraid of being involved with anyone!

Psychopaths know what makes people tick, how people's minds work, what people want and how to present themselves as people who are beyond socially acceptable and especially warm and nice. They use that skill to manipulate.

That's how they make good business people and politicians and how they suck in partners by seeming to be the perfect man or woman (usually man) before trapping the partner in an abusive relationship. They know everything about how to behave like a good person and they can play the part of a good person for nefarious reasons.

I'm not anymore. That was a few years ago. And I didn't know that's what he was when I met him. I only learned about psychopathy after removing him from my life.

Epigenetics at work...fascinating...gene regulation via environmental factors.

In terms of GENETIC PSYCHOLOGY, in regards to histories of human growth you can predict history in regards to brain configuration dominance patterns.

How did Human Society grow? INTELLIGENT SOCIOPATHS.
80% of the offspring of a genetic non-Psychopath and a genetic Psychopath will be Psychopathic.
However, 5% of those offspring will be non-Psychopath and 15% will be merely Sociopaths (because Psychopathy is a gene-doubling error, they over over-represented in terms of reproductive success in spreading the Psychopath genes). Think of the genetic example as a series of bit-flips in terms of random transfer. If you have the psychopath MAO-A gene copied 6 times in a row and a non-psychopath with 1 copy of the gene, the law of bit-flip averages is that their offspring will 3 MAO-A gene copies on average.

The pattern is that a human society is a bunch of non-violent hunters or gatherers.
Psychopaths are born and if not killed promptly, they breed, creating more psychopaths, which then destabilizes the prosperity of the tribe. Eventually, the psychopaths rise to the terrible psychotic destructive tyranny that usually kills off the entire tribe on some moronic whim.

However, remember that some of the offspring of the psychopaths will be genetically Sociopaths.
If Sociopaths are morons, they are usually destructive to themselves or others (see the entire history of Black Africa for endless historical examples). Sociopaths have no problems killing their siblings as well. If the tribe is lucky, the Sociopaths are SMART and they also have a bloodlust for killing off the competition (their siblings & parents). If these conditions are met, the tribe usually ends up prospering very well in the long run. However, if the Psychopaths win and instinctively murder their non-Psychopath children and kill off their Sociopath children, then the tribe flees or dies foolishly and it vanishes from history.

This post is nothing more than rationalizing. Of course you brought race into it.

Your arguments are nonsense. The children of someone with psychopathy and someone without are at a high risk of developing psychopathy, but the likelihood is still not very large (NOT 80%!) And the Mao variant that predisposes to aggression (not psychopathy, but hot-blooded agression) produces LESS MAO-A than the more common high producing variation. There can only be 2 copies of the gene anyway of either the high producing or low producing MAO-A gene variation, so a psychopath doesn't have 6 copies. Because the MAO-A gene is an X-chromosome linked gene, males can only have one copy, which actually makes them more likely to acquire a low-producing phenotype because they do not have a mitigating backup. And despite it all, psychopaths still make up only a bit over 1% of the population (i.e. not very successful in taking over the population).

For most humans to simply understand this, the brain is dividable into 4 primary sections.
EMOTION (Right Hemisphere)
LOGIC (Left Hemisphere)
INSTINCT (Brain Stem)
PREDICTION (Frontal Lobe)
For a Psychopath the decision Gatekeeper patterns are Primary INSTINCT (survival, dominance of others, exploiting easy opportunities, hunger, sex, and shelter). The next Gatekeeper is Secondary EMOTION (need for excitement or novelty, emotional attachments to external objects or living beings). The Third Gatekeeper is LOGIC (deduction, reason, comprehending the past, deciding if emotional attachments are rational).
Depending on how well-developed or poorly developed the FRONTAL LOBE (prediction) is, it will place itself at different locations in the GATEKEEPER CHAIN of thought processes. Depending on individual's predictive part of their brain will also somewhat predict how criminal a human will act against other humans.

Note that these traits are based in GENETIC PSYCHOLOGY. Genetic drives are permanent and cannot be fixed by a better diet or medication or education or even negative punishments. These drives are passed onto all of their children (80% of all children that have at least one psychopath parent will also genetically be psychopaths themselves).

For a Psychopath, a decision heads to the INSTINCT GATEKEEPER and if approved, then moves to the EMOTIONAL GATEKEEPER for approval, and then to the LOGIC GATEKEEPER. If the chosen action is against the LOGIC portion of the decision-chain, but EMOTION or INSTINCT approve, then the action is taken. A psychopath is driven to dominate other humans and since their secondary urge is emotionally-driven (emotions do not last, they fade, the thrill evaporates) the EMOTION section of the brain requires constant re-stimulation.

For a Sociopath, the brain is configured to this pattern.
INSTINCT is greater than LOGIC which is greater than EMOTION.
For a sociopath, they have just as great an INSTINCTUAL DRIVE for:
Survival, dominance of others, exploiting easy opportunities, hunger, sex, and shelter.
But without the constant EMOTIONAL drives for stimulation as the Psychopath.
Logical decisions last. They have weight. A timeless power.
However, not every other human is LOGICAL or RATIONAL.
Sociopaths have the same drive to dominate other humans, but not the killing urge usually (if their FRONTAL LOBE is well-developed & undamaged). However, Sociopaths can be easily driven to kill other humans that are found to be irritatingly illogical or dangerous idiots. And they won't really regret it because Sociopaths do not have the strong EMOTIONAL valuations of human life in terms of the lives of strangers or the lives of their family.

Technically, there are 24 permutation patterns for human brain GENETIC PSYCHOLOGY configurations, but for the layman you can consider just 6 usually as simple life experience will tell you that most humans have a poorly developed Frontal Lobe and simply cannot predict the logical or emotional outcomes of their own actions.

My father is like this and whilst he thinks himself "a good type of psychopath" he is anything but- hes highly amused and aroused at the discussion of the subject- What about Mr Fallons patients?
what of his golden child and his scapegoat?
what do they think about all this.
psychopaths making money from their own evil psychopathy and telling you they are good people basically- its just genetically they are awful selfish conning and manipulative but its ok cos they cant help it.

Is there anybody who could tell me any further information about the serotonin transporter protein he is researching? I am interested in the epigenetic contribution within psychopathy and how this particular allele may make the environmental conditions more salient on behavioural outcomes.

The serotonin transporter promotor region (5-HTTLPR) controls the expression of the serotonin transporter protein which regulates the activity of serotonin in the synaptic cleft through its reuptake, and variations of its are implicated in the risk of many mental disorders. The 5-HTTLPR long allele reduces emotional reactivity compared to the short allele, and while protects against neurotic disorders (depression and anxiety), animal and human research suggests that it can potentially predispose to psychopathy and obsessive compulsive disorder. It is theorized that the long allele may interact with genes that further reduce emotion to generate the core affective characteristics of psychopathy.

Of course, this is only one gene variation among hundreds that may cause psychopathy, and the "nurture" influence on its development may depend on how many of these risk genes the individual possesses. The "loving nurturing environment" may be only a part of the story, and as you can see in Fallon, while he doesn't have the criminal record of the average psychopath, he still has engaged in risky and endangering behavior and minor crimes, and admits that he doesn't have emotional connections to other people and has a tendency to be a bully.

Hmmm... my BS detectors are going off on this one. First, let's examine this statement: "Many of us would hide this discovery and never tell a soul, out of fear or embarrassment of being labeled
a psychopath." But... a psychopath doesn't care what other people think about him. A psychopath doesn't get embarrassed by findings like this. This is possibly why he is willing to publish his findings-albeit- somewhat inaccurate- not only for profit, but because he relishes SHOCK and awe from his audience. Also, while his findings are interesting to be sure, James Fallon needs to tease apart "psychopath" from "sociopath"- the latter typically depicting murderers and rapists. Psychopaths are more those manipulative "assholes" (his word- not mine) who hide in plain sight in society. Ex: he doesn't let his grand kids win at games (huh??- yeah- psychopath...and "happily married" according to whom? I would love his wife's honest opinion). Note, too, that Sociopathology DOES appear in the DSM-IV-whereas psychopath does not. Therefore, his facts are a little muddled, probably on purpose- possibly to sell more of his books. Someone with this level of education knows the difference. In fact, a desire to confuse and manipulate others for personal gain is part of psychopathology. And the fact that he really doesn't care what other people think of him is prompting him to put himself in the same category as sociopaths.(He wants to shock and awe- remember?) Please note that true sociopaths, no matter how they were raised, don't have empathy, guilt and, in fact, derive pleasure from other people's pain. A fact that haunts many devoted, loving parents whose children exhibit sociopathic behavior.. Be cautious, people... and do your own research. I will say this in support of Dr. Fallon's work- thank you for educating the public on the human brain and behavior. This is very much needed in our lacking and often fraudulent world of clinical mental health! *stepping off of soap box. Have a nice day!* :)

He did not write the article. I have NOT researched his TED Talk or book. However, having a Ph.D. in chemical engineering, I have found that "science" articles written for non-technical (i.e., not peer-reviewed journals) are often technically incorrect.

Not true, as an antisocial I did not want to harm anyone as a child, my upbringing with a mad woman having severe tourettes and a psycopath as as stepfather I was learned a lot of bad behaviour. I was not taught social skills, misinterpreted a lot, my mothemother had severe paranoia and did become "bad" before I hit my late teens. But I have features from several personality disorders, no one is the same. A lot of antisocials are not murderers, but are "normal" people you never would susoect of such...

The DSM is a catalog of billing codes, used by the pseudoscience drug racket of psychiatry to sell potent neurotoxins, and act as an agent of social control against those persons whom society finds inconvenient and annoying. Psychiatry is a fake, a fraud, and a scam. It's 21st Century Phrenology, with DRUGS for PROFIT..... It's almost as bad as it's intellectual brother, Scientology....visit >madinamerica.com<, for some TRUTH.

Okay, now I'm going to look this one up...but I do believe that sociopathy is the correlate to psychopathy and are interchangeable terms and sociopathology is not a correlate but a generally observable category of behavior. so...not relevant as a point. Haven't read through your whole comment yet, but had to stop and say, whoa there. Liked what you had to say about clinical health and the medical establishment, by the way. Also, great point about "according to him" he's happily married. Actually took that one at face value, lol.