• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header right navigation
  • Skip to site footer
Science Update

Science Update

Sharing Science | Satisfying Curiosity | Debunking BS

  • Spotlights
  • Reality Check
  • Why Is It?
  • Radio Archives
  • Sciup @ School
Home » Radio Archive » Daily Show » Psychopaths’ Brains

Psychopaths’ Brains

June 4, 2012
https://podcast.scienceupdate.com/120604_sciup_brain.mp3

Podcast: Play in new window

BOB HIRSHON (host):

Psychopathic brains.  I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.

True psychopaths – such as manipulative, remorseless serial killers – have different brains from other violent offenders.  This according to forensic psychologist Nigel Blackwood of King’s College, London.  He and his colleagues studied British prisoners with anti-social personality disorder, some of whom were also clinically psychopathic.  The psychopaths’ brains had less gray matter, a key type of nerve tissue, in areas linked to social and emotional awareness, shame, and morality.

NIGEL BLACKWOOD (King’s College, London):

So damage to these areas, may underpin the profound abnormalities in things like empathy, or guilt, that the psychopathic offenders experience.

HIRSHON:
Blackwood notes the non-psychopathic prisoners had committed similar crimes, but were generally hot-headed and impulsive rather than cold and calculating.  And in the aforementioned areas, their brains they were like those of non-offenders from the general population.  I’m Bob Hirshon for AAAS, the Science Society.\

Psychopathic men (above) have reduced grey matter volume in social/emotional brain regions (red), even compared to non-psychopathic violent criminals (below). (Image courtesy of King's College London)
Category: Daily Show, Station DownloadTag: Biology, Brain Science, Social & Behavioral Sciences
Previous Post: « Psychology Roundup
Next Post: Martian Carbon »

Sidebar

Radio Program Archives

Want to learn more about the brain? The environment? Here you can browse the topics that come up regularly on Science Update.

Search the Archives

Categories

  • Daily Show
  • Station Download
  • Weekly Show

Find By Tag

  • 2020
  • Acoustics & Sound
  • Aging
  • Animal Behavior
  • Anthropology
  • Archaeology
  • Astronomy & Space
  • Biology
  • Brain Science
  • Bugs
  • Chemistry
  • Children & Families
  • cicadas
  • Climate & Weather
  • Communications
  • Computer Science
  • Economics & Business
  • Education
  • Energy
  • Engineering & Technology
  • Environment & Conservation
  • Genetics & Evolution
  • Geology
  • Marine Science
  • Materials Science
  • Mathematics
  • Medicine & Health
  • Microbiology
  • Nanotechnology
  • Nutrition & Food Science
  • Paleontology & Dinosaurs
  • Physics
  • Plants & Agriculture
  • Political Science
  • Reality Check
  • Social & Behavioral Sciences
  • Sports & Fitness
  • spotlight
  • Spotlight Bugs
  • Terrorism & War
  • Why Is It? Questions
  • Wildlife
  • Year in Review

Find By Date

Science Update
  • About Science Update
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use

Follow Us

Recent Posts

House sparrow wearing top hat rides aboard a red fireworks rocket
Biologist E.O. Wilson with children
Diagram showing Earth's tilt

Copyright © 2022 · Springtail Media LLC · All Rights Reserved · Powered by Pongos