Chapter 2 First Impression

--Original published at Phil's College Blog

The Ted talk I chose to watch was Jim Fallon’s talk ” Exploring the mind of a killer” because a student from my high school turned out to be a serial killer a few years ago. His name was Cosmo DiNardo. He was a senior when I was a freshman, and the teachers at my school thought that he was a normal student. However, a few years after graduating he killed young adults from my county. Later, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and other mental diseases. I always wondered why he would do these things, and that is why I was attracted to that TED talk.

Jim Fallon’s talk included how genders influenced the likely hood of who became a serial killer. He explained how the X chromosome is the deciding factor. This is true because the X chromosome carries a gene called MAOA gene. These means that the likely hood of this gene becoming dominant will come from your mother if you are a boy. This is true because a girl has two X chromosomes. For instance, the X chromosome from your mother becomes diluted with your father causing the MAOA gene to be less dominant. This happens because there is to much serotonin in the embryo  during the pregnancy so later in life serotonin becomes ineffective to the person. Jim also explained why this gene continues is because the only way the gene activates because of a traumatic event. This causes cultures to be violent because the only ay this gene becomes active is through violence causing a tinderbox of a community ready to ignite.

The thing I found the most interesting about the talk is how the gene largely only affects boys because a girl has the same gene but it is not activated because of the X chromosome of the girl’s father. I would think that the same traumatic event would still activate the gene even though a female has another X chromosome.

I do not fine the presenter trustworthy because he did not perform a experiment about the children in violent communities have a more likely chance to have MAOA activate. He described scientifically and psychologically how this could occur but he never did a study on those children and children outside of that community. That he randomly assigned and randomly sampled.

My research idea is that a safe environment away from violence will decrease the chance of violent actions by the affected individuals.

First, I would select a random group of children that have volunteered for my study from a violent community. Then I will randomly assign the children into non-violent communities, and the other randomly assigned group will be sent to a different violent community. The children’s violence will be monitored by an act of physically or emotionally hurting someone by their host families and their teachers in the perspective schools. After one year, the violent acts will be tallied, and we will see if the traumatic events in their younger childhood years still affected their behavior. However, the researcher will also see if the new environments increased or decreased the behavior of the children . The students in the violent community will always be secretly watched incase their mental health and live is put in serious danger by the host family. Both host families, in either community will give the same treatment to the subjects. Both will provide exactly what is needed to survive, but the family will give no extra affection or neglect. This will truly attest the research to the community the students live in daily.

Neuroscience

--Original published at Ally'sCollegeBlog

A TED talk by Rebecca Sax on “How We Read Each Other’s Minds”

As I was scrolling through the TED talk options, one in particular caught my eye. It was titled “How We Read Each Other’s Minds” by Rebecca Sax and it was about how someone can interpret a situation, infer a person’s thoughts or emotions, and come up with a moral conclusion. It also included ways of measuring a person’s response to a situation and actually changing the person’s moral conclusion. I was intrigued by this because the brain is so complex and it is amazing that scientists have created a way to measure and control a part of the human body.

Sax goes on to explain the method in which they can control a person’s response. Using a Functional MRI (f MRI), magnetic currents are directed to a specific part of the brain called the RTP and can alter a person’s response to a moral situation.

The RTP solely focuses on moral decisions. A young child does not have a fully developed RTP, therefore can not make certain moral conclusions based on situation given. The speaker measured this as well with giving an identical test to a three, five and seven year old. Each one had a different response but as the age increased, the more the child understood the situation and could come up with a moral conclusion.

The research was extensive but Sax did not have statistical support to demonstrate her data. The charts and graphs Sax used were poorly constructed. She had words and arrows, not numbers and outcomes. I think that the idea is very interesting and could be used in the future with court systems and more specifically the Jury. I do not think her researched is supported enough therefore I do not think the presenter or the information is trustworthy.

I really like the idea of monitoring the brain when it responds to data it is given. I would want to do a research study focused around that were I have 50 participants all over the age of 25. I want people from different cultures because I believe that an unethical solution to one person from a certain culture is actually ethical to another. I would monitor the RTP while I give the a scenario and while they say their moral solution. I would then give them a second test but while using the f MRI. The reason I want people to be over the age of 25 is because I do not want young children or teenagers as their brains are not fully developed.

Neuroscience

--Original published at Allison's Psych Blog

I watched Jim Fallon talk about what makes a psychopathic killer. I was drawn to this TED talk because I am very fascinated about how the brain of a killer works, and about how they think about things. In the talk, Jim mentioned differences in a killer’s brain compared to a normal person. Every killer has some sort of brain damage to their frontal lobe and potentially other parts of the brain. Killers also have a violence gene called MAOA, which is a sex linked gene coming from the mother, so they have a higher risk of getting this gene, seeing as they don’t get an X chromosome from their fathers. Killers also seem to go through a traumatic experience involving violence when they are a kid. All three of these things result in someone who kills. I thought it was really interesting when he showed the PET scans of killer’s brains compared to a normal person at that age. The amount of differences and damage in those pictures was unbelievable. I found Jim decently trustworthy. He is a professor at a university and is a certified neurosurgeon, but when he started studying psychopathic killers, it was out of the blue because someone asked him to. So he seemed fairly new to the subject and seemed to ramble on and on a few times. But, he was very knowledgeable about the brains. A very interesting thing to me about what makes a killer would be traumatic experience they had to go through. I am very interested to find out if there is a certain level of tragedy that correlates to turning into a killer more than another. I would gather a group of maybe 10 people who have gone through a violent experience, all of different intensities, and ask questions pertaining to psychopathic thoughts to see if a certain level of violence leads people to act violently.

Exploring the Mind of a Killer

--Original published at Jill Distler's Psychology Blog

A TED Talk by Jim Fallon

I mostly found the title of this ted talk interesting because I for some reason have a strange affixation with reading about serial killers, such as: Ed Gein, Charles Manson, and even Jefferey Dahmer. Resulting in me believing that wanting to know more about how the brains of “psychopathic killers” function and process would supplement my overall interest in them. In this talk, Jim Fallon discussed how in over 70 brain scans of killers and normal people across the different age groups have shown that “psychopathic killers” possess damage in the areas of the brain above the eyes in the orbital cortex and in the anterior part of the frontal lobe. These scans were also analyzed to understand how genetics, and interaction with the environment may have caused their brains to develop differently over time.

            This presenter, in my opinion may be the best source on this subject because of his credentials associated with the University of California, where he is both a neuroscientist and a professor. Jim Fallon is also related to the founder of Cornell University and Lizzie Borden, the suspected axe murderer of her father and stepmother in the late 19thcentury. His family history also offers concern when it comes to “psychopathic killers” like his great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather murdering his mother, and the seven other men on his father’s side that all became murderers. I found Jim Fallon’s talk extremely interesting because although the topic is difficult and dark, he made it entertaining and light hearted. I also think his idea to begin preforming brain scans, EEGs, and genetic analysis tests on his entire living family was entertaining since he feels that through the generations it may be time for another “psychopathic killer” to emerge. These tests showed his family why two of the siblings, who didn’t typically get along, were so argumentative: because their brain scans were extremely similar.

            I think an interesting research project to conduct would be analyzing the brain scans of different age groups in stressful situations such as college freshmen studying for their first final exam, and college seniors studying for  their GRES or MCATS. These scans could also be taken at the time of a large childhood change like a move or even at a sad moment like when a family experiences the loss of a beloved pet.  By analyzing these scans, I would like to point out that I don’t think I would prove stress would create killers, but I would allow psychologists to understand how stress, and sadness can affect the outcomes of the situations. These tests would be slightly difficult to conduct just because there wouldn’t be random sampling, and the sampling would be bias because of how specific the people in the study need to be when it comes to fitting the outline of the desired candidates.

Neuroscience

--Original published at Emily's college blog

I chose the TED talk called, “Exploring the mind of a killer” because I have always wanted to know how ordinary people become psychopathic killers.  In his talk, he explained the genetic, biological-epigenetic, and environmental factors that contribute to the making of a killer.  He first tells the audience that we see more violent male killers than female because of the MAOA sex-linked gene that is inherited from the mother.  Females can receive a MAOA gene from their mother but the x from their father will weaken the aggressive MAGOA gene.  With the MAOA gene, males in the womb are bathed in serotonin, causing their brain to become desensitized and unable to use it in order to calm down later in life. 

Next, in order to express this gene, the child has to be exposed to traumatic violence very early in their life.  This is what the presenter calls a “recipe for disaster” and is what causes the brain damage of a psychopathic killer.  He then goes on tell the violent history of his family which causes him to believe that his family has the MAOA gene for a psychopathic killer in the future. 

What I found most interesting about the talk was the comparison of brains between a normal adult and a psychopathic killer.  From the comparison, one could see the damage that the killer’s brain undergoes. 

Although this was an interesting talk, the presenter did not have any evidence that could back up any of his ideas.  He also only did pet scans of the brains in his family.  His family does have a history of violent killers and it would be fascinating to see the gene taking effect on their brains, but this is not enough people to conduct a true experiment. The presenter also only made two or three points to back up his ideas and none of them were proved to be actually correct.  Even though his points make sense, for those reasons, I did not find the presenter and his information trustworthy.

A research idea I have is to find various volunteers who know they have violent ancestors and find various volunteers who know they do not have violent ancestors.  I would pair up each group and make sure that they lived in the same area, being either violent with a lot of crime or calm with barely any crime.  I then would analyze the brain results of each of the groups from the violent and nonviolent area where they grew up.  I would look to see if there were brain differences in all the different children.      

Neuroscience

--Original published at Jess Principe's Blog

By: Jess Principe

The TED talk I selected was “Exploring the Mind of a Killer” by Jim Fallon, and I chose this one because I am currently watching the “Ted Bundy Tapes” on Netflix with my roommate, and her and I have both gone back and forth with trying to understand why a guy that appeared pretty normal in his early life transformed into a serial killer, responsible for the deaths of possibly over a hundred women. During the TED talk, Jim Fallon discussed that he has studied the brains of several killers from the past and explained some of the factors that he believes has caused the people to become psychopaths. Jim Fallon explains that the three major factors that contribute to are brain damage, genes, and environmental factors. In addition, he states that the major brain damage in all of the killers he studied was to the orbital cortex. Jim Fallon also explains that the serial killers would most likely have seen or experienced some sort of trauma before puberty to increase their risk of having these developmental issues that led them to become killers.

What I found most interesting was the irony that the brains of the serial killers revealed high levels of serotonin, a chemical that should calm someone, yet it made these people consistent, violent killers. In addition, I found Jim Fallon’s discussion on the MAOA gene being a high risk factor for someone who is sociopathic to be much more likely in men than women, due to the gene being sex linked, therefor most likely the gene is from the mother X chromosome being passed on to the male.

I trusted the presentation given by Jim Fallon because he supported all of his claims with evidence not only on the killers he observed, but also had the passion to explore his own family history to help gain additional evidence for his studies. Jim Fallon showed many images during the talk of the scans he did of the killers for more proof as well. In addition, I felt it was a strong presentation given because of Jim Fallon’s use of deductive reason, beginning in general with the three major factors that he feels contribute to the developmental damage of killers, to the specific information of the high risk MAOA  gene found on the X chromosome.

My research idea would be to obtain more informational evidence of the killers in their adolescent years, around ages 5 to 12. By this I mean I would look into more factors that may have led to the psychological damage of the killers. I would do this to see if their are any overlapping themes in how the children were raised or other factors that could contribute to the violent lives of the killers, aside from Jim Fallon’s claim of them having to experience some type of trauma before puberty. I feel there are more factors that could possibly go into the developmental damage of the killers than just a trauma at a young age. Some examples of possible factors could be safety of their home life, their family’s economic status, their social upbringing, and parenting styles used on them. I would conduct this research through interviews of current killers on their adolescent years by creating a series of questions that would reveal answers to some of those posed questions. Then, I would review the data and see which questions overlapping in the majority of the killers interviewed, to strengthen the evidence already discovered by scientists like Jim Fallon.  

Chapter 2 – First Impression

--Original published at NataliesCollegeBlog

The TED talk that I picked was Exploring the Mind of a Killer by Jim Fallon. Seeing the title for the TED talk immediately caught my attention because of recently watching the Ted Bundy show on Netflix. The TED talk actually ended up showing a picture of Ted Bundy and described him as a psychopathic killer in his talk. Overall, the film discussed the study of behaviors in psychopathic killers. Fallon said that psychopathic killers are made from a mix of brain damage, genes, and the environment. Something that I found interesting about the talk was when Fallon showed the brain scans and said how all psychopathic killers showed to have damage to the cortex of their brain. Although this is interesting, I feel as if this is not enough evidence to classify everyone with a damaged cortex to have psychopathic tendencies. This is also why I found this talk to be very untrustworthy. The professor tried to quickly throw in the words “blind study” when he said when he examines brains and it really had nothing to do with what he was trying to discuss. There was not much evidence backing up what he was saying and the way he spoke made it sound like he was unconfident about what he was talking about too. At the end he also talked about personal stories and his family tree having psychopathic killers. This made his TED talk feel more like a personal study rather than an experimental study. Fallon also would say things that would show correlations and there were no true cause and effect conclusions because this is not a true experiment.

After listening to this TED talk, it made me think of doing a research study to understand how people think and to see if there is evidence that people with damage in their cortex have psychopathic/mean tendencies. I would have to find people that showed to have cortex damage and randomly select 20 participants to be interviewed and tested. The randomly selected people would each be asked about their childhood right away, since Jim Fallon said traumatizing experiences during someones childhood creates psychopaths. The people being tested would then have to preform a challenging task/worksheet that they would only have 10 minutes to complete. After the worksheet, the people being tested would be asked to rate their frustration/anger from 1-10. If anger/psychopathic tendencies related to a damaged cortex, then the answers after the study should be roughly the same numbers.

Chapter 2 First Impression Prompts – Neuroscience

Hand writing on a notebook

Regardless of which prompt you choose, please use the Tag “Neuroscience” on your post.

For your blog prompt this week, you are to choose one of the following TED talks:

Each talk focuses on a different aspect of the brain. In your response, address the following issues:

  • What drew you to choose the talk you did?
  • Briefly summarize the talk.
  • What did you find most interesting about the talk?
  • How trustworthy did you find the presenter and the information she or he presented? Explain why. (Note: you must go beyond talking about the reputation of TED talks in general)
  • Come up with a research idea of your own based on the information presented in the talk and briefly outline how you would conduct it.

For refinement posts, I want you to focus on critiquing the assessment of why the presenter was or was not trustworthy and the research design for the proposed study your classmate creates.

I look forward to seeing what you write!

Header image: CC by Flickr user Caitlinator
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Chapter 2 Neuroscience – First Impression: Option 1

--Original published at Rachel Bickelman's PSY 105 Blog

I chose to watch the TED talk about psychopathic killers because it seemed the most interesting. Jim Fallon, the featured speaker, spoke about three variables of genetics, biological-epigenetic brain damage, and environment and the timing of these variables which can lead to psychopathic killers. It is important to highlight that there is a gene, MAO-A, that is needs in a sense to be activated by an pre-adolescent traumatic event for one to be a psychopathic killer.

What I thought was most interesting is the genetic predisposition one might have to being a psychopathic killer and how gene pools and areas experiencing war and violence  may result in a “generation” of psychopathic killers.

I found Fallon’s findings to be sufficiently backed up, his tests on 70 brains of both the normal and populations of psychopathic killers had damage to the same area of the brain, the orbital cortex. with the MAO-A gene were representative and legitimate ways of measuring brain activity. Also, Fallon utilizes science, specifically genetics, to support how he came to the study’s conclusions.

A research idea that relates to this presentation could focus on the effect of violence on psychopathic tendencies. This research idea would have to be a prospective study checking -in on the participants in the future. Participants would be from geographical areas with a high level of violence to try to find a correlation between tendency of violence and exposure. Another control group would be recruited to aid as a comparison. I would measure violent tendencies in their behavior by giving them a specific situation in which violence can be chosen. I would also try to conduct a naturalistic operation to get a more genuine sense of their tendency to violence.

First Impression: The Biology of Behavior

--Original published at Cecilia's Thoughts

The biology of behavior is an interesting topic for me to learn about and I look forward to studying it further. I have some prior knowledge about the basic biology in the health field because of the pathway I took in high school. I went to a vo-tech school where I studied nursing, we learned the basic structures of neurons, the human body, cells, and the anatomy of the human body. We spent a lot of time on the structure of a neuron. The neuron is made up of many parts: the axon, the myelin sheath, dendrites, and cell receptors. I also learned about the basic body functions which hopefully will tie into this chapter of the biology of behavior. I learned about how every body part is made up of neurons, these neurons provide a certain purpose.

I also remember learning about the parts of the brain. There are multiple different lobes: the occipital lobe, the frontal lobe, the parietal lobe, and the temporal lobe. All of these different lobes provide a different function for the human body. The different lobes work together along with the spinal cord in sending and receiving messages from the outside world and transporting those messages to the brain and vice versa. The body functions because of nerves, and these nerves send impulses to the brain which then causes an action. For example, when you touch something pointy, you feel that and it sends impulses to your brain to tell you to pull your finger away.