An Anatomical Brain Model from the Minority Report

It would appear every time we open a newspaper or a news website that the value of human life has never been lower. Wherever we look, there are people shooting people at random, committing terrible crimes against women and children and kidnapping people; and there are conscience-free people in positions of power who trample on everyone possible at every turn. The typical reaction in anyone upon being presented with one more example of such mindless behavior is often to look skywards and to ask, "Why?". Normal people just can't seem to understand why anyone would want to do these things. Now, finally, researchers working on an MRI-based anatomical brain model of the brains of criminals, have found a somewhat satisfactory answer. Anatomically, the brains of criminals are different. And visibly so.

The research was released by the Mayo Clinic. So it's completely believable. They looked at a couple of dozen subjects, working out an anatomical brain model of each with the help of detailed MRI scans. All the subjects they looked at had antisocial personality disorder. What that means is that these were people to whom the concept of right and wrong simply doesn't exist., People with no conscience, on an MRI, have a visibly smaller orbital and middle frontal gyrus - two important parts on the front of the brain that deal with having a conscience. In these people, the parts of the brain that would have supplied them with a conscience were at least 18% smaller.

People who are confronted with people of criminal intention are often struck by how flat and free of emotion these people are, committing the most outrageous crimes (one remembers the manic grin on that infamous picture of Loughner and indifferent statements made by the Craigslist killer). They seem that way because they truly have no emotions. The amygdala, the part of the brain that processes emotion in normal people is so deformed in these people that it doesn't give them the emotions they need to be normal. How does one hold a criminal responsible for what he does when he simply has a disability?

There are actual criminal cases now that have been won for the criminal on trial, on the basis of studies like these. They believe that criminals responsible for the most hair-raising crimes should clearly be given an MRI, called mentally deficient, be given whatever rehabilitation or treatment they can use. A very important study done on nearly 2000 children actually gives some kind of credibility to a position like this. They followed all those children right from the time they were three years old, up to the time they were 23 years old. They tried to make an anatomical brain model for each child, to try to predict if the child would turn criminal once he grew up. They were actually able to make some pretty accurate predictions. They found that these children in particular, just could not be taught right from wrong by being punished. They just could never learn. One wonders what these results have in store for the way our criminal justice system will evolve in the future.

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