What Neuroscience Tell Us About Evil Summary

The article What Neuroscience Tell Us about Evil informs the public about the minds of sociopaths and psychopaths and how they differ from that of a normal individual. The article reveals the results of an advanced brain-imaging technique call FMRI which uses magnetic fields to detect neural activity. Researchers from all over the world have been taking scans of the brains of sociopaths and psychopaths when they are shown graphic and violent images and comparing them to normal individuals when shown the same graphic and violent images. The research shows heavy brain activity in the amygdala in normal individuals whereas in sociopaths and psychopaths, there is little to no brain activity in the amygdala. According to the article, some researchers

As one should know, every person's brain is different in more ways than one. The brains of violent offenders however, are more different than the rest of ours. Their brain scans show little to no brain activity in the amygdala and frontal cortex, and in class I learned that the amygdala is the part of the brain responsible for emotional response. I have made connections between the article What Can Neuroscience Tell Us About Evil and my class. The article talks about the little emotion that criminal offenders have and in which parts of the brain are responsible for that; in chapter two, I learned which parts of the brain are responsible for emotional response. The article reveals that the problem of the amygdala remaining dark in criminal offenders is known as Limbic Underactivation. The Limbic System, I learned, regulates emotional control among other things. The Hypothalamus, Hippocampus, amygdala, and Thalamus are all the parts of the brain that make up the Limbic System. I have also made a connection between the biological and behavioral perspectives in regard to a theory that was mentioned in the article. The article talks about how people who naturally suppress emotions and have a childhood full of neglect and abuse are more likely to become criminal offenders. This theory takes into account their low brain activity in and around the Limbic System. In chapter one, which talks about different methods, I learned about the biological and behavioral perspectives. During this time I learned that the behavioral perspective considers the shape of one’s behavior based on their environment, and that the biological perspective emphasizes the physical bases of human behavior such as genetics. Knowing what I learned in class, both of the perspectives seem to play a part in the theory stated above. Chapters one and two the psychology book really helped me understand