--Original published at Sidney's college blogs
I chose the TED talks video of Jim Fallon: Exploring the mind of a killer. Why someone would have a desire to kill another human being, or multiple, has always blown my mind. This explains my addiction to binge watching the tv show Criminal Minds. It has always fascinated me, so it caught my attention to write this post on it. This video talked about the make-up of the brain and the differences that a psychopathic killer has within the brain. He found damage within the orbital cortex of psychopathic brains. The timing of damage within the brain has a lot to do with the outcome of a psychopath. The genetic make-up of the brain also influences the result of a murderer. Jim Fallon talked about the gene MAOA, which is on the X chromosome. It makes too much serotonin during development, so it is no longer able to be affected by serotonin later in life. The serotonin allows a normal person to calm down, but killers can’t because their brains are too used to the serotonin to be able to respond to it. It explains why most killers are men. Another aspect that leads to a killer is a traumatic event. The combination of all of these causes a psychopathic killer. I believe that the study is true and accurate due to the fact that he described the way he examined the brains. He did a blind study, so he didn’t know if the brain he was studying was a psychopathic killer, or if the brain was just a normal human’s. This assured him to examine each brain fully and equally. The thing that surprised me the most about the talk was to learn that the damage done to their brains actually influences the result of a killer. I thought it was more of the genetic make-up of their brains rather than damage to them. It was definitely interesting to learn about.
An idea I would like to research is traumatic events and how they impact the brain. Traumatic events have a way of messing with your entire life, so I would like to see of what severity it starts to impact your thoughts, your actions, and your mental state. Jim Fallon explained that a traumatic event induces this within killers. It would be interesting to see at what severity things start happening to the brain. It would be a very unethical experiment to do, so a natural observation would have to be done with those who have been through a traumatic experience or are experiencing them still. Surveys could also be filled out by the participants. The survey would consist of questions on what their outlook on things and how they feel internally. The actions that they do may align with or disagree with the way they say they think and feel. The altering of their thinking will show what type of traumatic event can cause what within the brain.