Neuropsychological basis of criminal behaviour

Hahahha i agreed with you 😃

Forums like these are a great way of supplementing our education. I'm constantly learning from the brilliant folks here as well as other forums.

That's when you know the Internet can be a great and positive place 😁

neurological disease or defect...wow...is this The frontal lobe? What other mental illnesses does this effect outside of dementia?

@Eve Fritz Great question - dementia I would refer to as a disease. However, it's not just dementia that can produce these effects.

In general, we're referring to the frontal lobe - though we're referring to more specific areas of the frontal lobe whose functions are vast.

Trauma can produce a startling array of behavioral changes...the easiest case that comes to mind is the strange tale of Phineas Gage.

Phineas Gage was a railroad worker and he was working when a premature explosion caused a tamping iron to turn into a missile and shoot right through Gage's skull. As it did so it tore through his brain and out the top.

Incredibly...Gage didn't die and there wasn't much of a loss to his intellectual powers.

However there were some distinct behavioral, changes as noted by people he had worked for before.

One can refer to Harlow 1848 for the direct tale - but this quote is taken from https://neuro.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/jnp.11.2.280

Bearing in mind that certain parts of the frontal lobe we might refer to as the social aspects of ourselves - allows us to inhibit taboo behavior and monitor ourselves socially. The spike did a great deal of damage to these areas.

To a lesser and less permanent degree, one experiences this when they are drunk.

alcohol's main effect strikes at these areas within the frontal lobe and this is why you may become less inhibited with alcohol. The other area chiefly affected by alcohol is the cerebellum whose function is to regulate gross and fine motor movement. Which is why it's so darn hard to walk in a straight line. 😂

@Daniel Sumner fascinating…if anything has been made clear, trauma or injury to the brain particularly in this region is the kind of specific scientific information a judge would want in order to assess the defendants, and may be the only actual “evidence-based” way to make court decisions about these types of criminals.… it seems that brain defects are more clear cut and easier in some ways to pinpoint and see as opposed to personality or insanity consciousness theories. Again looking at autonomy of the person and clues on desire for change etc.