What does psychopath mean? The term psychopath was first used in the 1900s. In 1930s, the word was replaced with sociopath so as to show that they cause serious harm to society, but nowadays the term psychopath is more and widely used. Some researchers occasionally use the term psychopath to talk about really serious cases such as serious disorders often connected to genetic features. However, sociopath is often used to describe not very threatening people who are the way they are due to their upbringing and environment (Hirstein, 2013).
How does their brain work? Why are some of them aggressive? There is a violence gene - MAO-A which is a sex-related gene and can be found in average people. It depends on the X chromosome of the mother. This is the reason why the psychopathic killers usually are males. The female …show more content…
However, the male receives the mother’s X chromosome. This gene makes the brain unresponsive to serotonin, whose function is to calm us down (Fallon, 2009).
Are the psychopaths abnormal people? Neuroscientists are aware that damages in the frontal lobe of the brain can lead to serious changes in behavior. There are a lot of cases of people who have become sociopathic because of pathological brain damage, for example a tumor. According to a report from 1992, a patient developed antisocial disorder after a surgery for removing a pituitary tumor. This harmed the orbitofrontal cortex (a component of the frontal lobe); however, neither neuropsychological nor personality tests showed particular mental default. Anna and Antonio Damasio, Portuguese neurologists, have announced in 1990 that people with damaged ventromedial frontal cortex showed unusual behavior, which caused some
How does their brain work? Why are some of them aggressive? There is a violence gene - MAO-A which is a sex-related gene and can be found in average people. It depends on the X chromosome of the mother. This is the reason why the psychopathic killers usually are males. The female …show more content…
However, the male receives the mother’s X chromosome. This gene makes the brain unresponsive to serotonin, whose function is to calm us down (Fallon, 2009).
Are the psychopaths abnormal people? Neuroscientists are aware that damages in the frontal lobe of the brain can lead to serious changes in behavior. There are a lot of cases of people who have become sociopathic because of pathological brain damage, for example a tumor. According to a report from 1992, a patient developed antisocial disorder after a surgery for removing a pituitary tumor. This harmed the orbitofrontal cortex (a component of the frontal lobe); however, neither neuropsychological nor personality tests showed particular mental default. Anna and Antonio Damasio, Portuguese neurologists, have announced in 1990 that people with damaged ventromedial frontal cortex showed unusual behavior, which caused some