Scanning a Killer's Brain Adrian Raine, a professor of Psychology at the University of Southern California, has been researching about the brain activity of murderers for many years. H e has wondered what were killers thinking before, during and after murdering other people, what could have been going on in their heads and if their brains were wired differently. After conducting some MRI scans of the brains of 41 affective and predatory murderers and 41 control subjects, he found that the prefrontal cortex of the affective murderers (people who kill by impulse or by not being able to control their emotions) had little activity. The prefrontal cortex is believed to control impulsive behaviors and the "heart" of ethical conduct. He also stated