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Criminal behaviour biological and psychological
Criminal behaviour biological and psychological
Psychological factors underlying criminal behaviour
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Damage to the prefrontal cortex is the damage to the frontal lobes. This sort of damage causes the inability to plan or behave in ways society says you should. When damage occurs in childhood, the individual who is affected may never have a real understanding or be able to grasp the concept of social norms. When you are older and the damage occurs later on in life, there is and understanding on how they should act, but they are just not capable of achieving normal behavior. Damage to the prefrontal cortex can also: suppress speech, lack empathy, antisocial behaviors, cause dishonesty, and difficulty with organization as well as impulse control. Researchers have linked that many of the worst criminals have damage to their prefrontal cortex,
... & Mishkin, 1970; Roberts & Wallis, 2000 ; Rolls, 2000). Therefore it can be concluded that lesion to this area of the brain could result in disinhibited behaviour affecting social behaviour.
Think about it, an average teen in this world has just been diagnosed with a type of incurable dementia which will forever change his or her life. Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is one of the less common forms of dementia. It is when the nerve cells in the frontal lobe die and over time the brain tissue shrinks. Frontotemporal dementia is mostly found in people who are in their teens or twenties. It can affect young people in a very negative way. They start to get aggressive and as the disease gets worse they lose friends and have a difficult time in school and understanding things. Frontotemporal dementia is a rare disease that is on the rise and affects the people of the younger generation.
The prefrontal cortex (PFC) also controls behaviors that depend on context (Kalat 2004). For example, if my cell phone rings when I am at the mall or grocery store I would answer it. If it rings while I am at the movies or in class I wouldn't answer it. People with frontal lobe damage often exhibit inappropriate behaviors due to the inability to recognize context. Other studies indicate that the PFC is also responsible for regulating emotions and decision-making.
...to the article Startling Finds on Teenage Brains by Paul Thompson from Sacramento Bee, published on May 25, 2001 “...brain cells and connections are only being lost in areas controlling impulses, risk-taking, and self-control.”, during this loss of brain tissue, the juvenile cannot their impulses which can cause erratic behavior. Juveniles may not even mean to act this way they just do. It may even be something that they are necessarily aware of. Or they may be aware of it but do not notice the need to change. Juveniles just need a something to keep them out of trouble and not everyone has one.
Finger, Marsh, K. Blair, Reid, Sims, Ng, Pine, and R. Blair wanted to know if youths who have conduct disorder or oppositional defiance disorder have abnormalities in their amygydala and orbitalfrontal cortex. The experimenters used an fMRI to check for abnormalities. Youths who have conduct disorder or oppositional defiance disorder tend to show more aggression and antisocial behavior. These youths also have a higher risk of being antisocial or even criminals in the future. Although psychopathic traits can be caught early, psychologists do not fully understand pathophysiology. In previous studies experimenters have found that subjects who have psychopathic traits also have issues with emotional learning. They found that the traits showed damage in the stimulus-reinforcement learning and in decision making using the passive avoidance task. According to previous studies the amygdala is where the stimulus-associations take place, which then the information is thought to be sent to the orbitalfrontal cortex through the ventral striatum. Then in the orbitalfrontal cortex processes the information and helps in the decision making.
.... “Case Report: Acquired Antisocial Personality Disorder Associated with Unilateral Left Orbital Frontal Lobe Damage.” Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience 17(3): 121-125.
Executive development happens primarily in the prefrontal cortex, a region of the brain more sensitive to stress than any other. Unlike anywhere else in the brain, even mild stress can flood the prefrontal cortex with the neurotransmitter dopamine, which causes executive functioning to shut down (Diamond, 2010).
The premotor cortex (Brodmann’s Area 6) is located in the frontal cortex of the primate brain and lies anterior to the central sulcus and the primary motor cortex (M1) with the overarching functions of planning possible movement trajectories, spatial and sensory guidance of movements, as well as comprehending the actions of others. The premotor cortex receives afferent and sends efferent signals to the primary motor cortex, prefrontal cortex, and parietal cortex. In addition, it also sends projections to the spinal cord, making up a portion of the corticospinal tract, as well as to the striatum and thalamus in the brain (Purves & Williams, 2001). The premotor cortex can be divided into both medial-lateral functional divisions and the lateral premotor cortex can be subdivided into ventral-dorsal areas. The majority of the lateral premotor cortex is dedicated to understanding guided movements whereas the medial portion of the premotor cortex is focused on internal, self-initiated movements (Purves & Williams, 2001). While both the ventral and dorsal premotor cortices are active directly prior to a goal-oriented movement, they both respond to particular stimuli. For example, the ventral premotor cortex (PMv) receives a variety of visual and somatosensory inputs and is implicated in decision-making of the best movement, and it is also selectively activated to
Children experience decreased development in the left brain when traumatic events occur (Network, n.d.). Imagine being a child and growing up with these types of events occurring. A traumatic event in a child’s life can cause a child to experience a long lasting negative effect. Life events are happening everywhere and more often in the lives of children (Understanding Child Traumatic Stress, n.d.). Trauma can cause them to do three things. First, they try to see what the danger is and how serious it is. Secondly there are strong emotional and physical reactions. Thirdly they attempt to come up with what to do that can help them with the danger. Traumatic events can cause a child to develop differently, which effects the young child stage,
There is no one causal factor, or single identifying marker that determines violent behavior in individuals. While studies show characteristics associated with violent offenders, no single variable predetermines such offenses. It is instead a number of factors that come in to play, that have shown an association to such reactive aggressive behavior. Factors such as environmental demographic (Hughs, 2008) (Barnes, 2012), biological and genetic predispositions to mental illness (Miller & Barnes, 2013), prenatal brain development (Michalska & Kinzler, 2011), abuse, psychological factors, and many other variables that somehow coincide to create a recipe for such violent actions. Strides to determine these factors, and what sets the stage for such pathology is as important as it is controversial. The closer we get to arrive at possible causal factors, the closer we are to preventing such acts from happening, and providing help and better treatments for those with such disorders early on.
All over popular culture are fictional villains vying for total world domination. They can try all they want but there is only one thing in the world that can have complete control over humanity. The Brain controls all aspects of humanity from keeping people alive to choosing what it wants for lunch. The problem with the brains dictatorship over mankind is the brain can be damaged like any other organ. Trauma can cause all kinds of problems for the poor soul that it affects. The Psychological diseases and disorders can cause major or minor problems that change the whole chemical structure of the brain. These psychological diseases that are caused by trauma affect many people including PI Patel in Yann Martel’s fictional novel Life of Pi. Life
TBIs can impact these areas in many ways, for an example, according to Spikman et al. (2013); focal prefrontal damage can result in problems with social cognition, emotional recognition, memory, and executive functioning. Difficulties in these areas mentioned previously can cause drastic effects for a person such as employment, relationships, and conversations. For a specific case, the lady that I observed at the Crumley house had adequate social skills, however, had deficits in her memory that impacted social engagement. She had trouble with her short-term memory, short-term memory is a common deficit within the TBI population (Slovarp, Azuma, & LaPointe, 2012). During our conversation together, I had to repeat the topic several times and the most recent comment I made. For an example: (ME) “I love these blueberry scones.” What’s your favorite dessert you have tried so far? (TBI Resident) “I like this brownie, what’s your favorite?” Her difficulties, I believe, are due to prefrontal lobe damage. An additional area that could be affected is the temporal lobe, more specifically deep within this lobe to the hippocampus and the amygdala. Damage to the temporal lobe can result in difficulty retaining verbal information (Ariza et al.,
For most people the left frontal lobe controls language and the right non-verbal abilities (UNL, 2005).On the left frontal lobe is an area called Broca’s area which allows thoughts to be transformed into words. In addition, there are many connections from the frontal lobe to other parts of the brain that control vision, respiration, blood pressure and gastrointestinal activity (NBTF, 2005). Damage to the frontal lobe results a range of behaviors referred to collectively as ‘frontal lobe syndrome.’ There are numerous ways of damaging the frontal cortex including lesions, tumors, and strokes. Lesions damage the frontal cortex when a blow to the head or a sudden change of motion causes the boney structure underneath the frontal lobes to tear the axons (as is the case with prefrontal lobotomy or leucotomy).
Having faced either physical and/or sexual maltreatment, young people who are maltreated tend to have impaired physical and emotional social functions.
As human beings we are living organisms that are a step above the rest. Our unique anatomy gives us the innate ability to grow, change, and adapt to our surroundings. Our stages of life can be divided into birth, childhood, adolescents, young adult, adult, and older adult. At each stage not only does our physical appearance change and hit milestones so does our anatomy. Our prefrontal cortex continues to develop until we are in our mid twenties for example. Thats why as teenagers and even young adults we are still developing motor, cognitive, and social behaviors. This explains why teenagers are the worse drivers, their judgement and foresight has not reached it’s full potential. Here is a chart that compares the human prefrontal cortex development to that of a rat. You can see well into the age of 32 the prefrontal cortex is still developing in humans.image