Newer studies of
human brain performance indicate that some killers may be born to act on violent tendencies
as much as directed to do so by faulted environmental pressures and dysfunctional
social and familial influences.
The studies I
mention look directly at the level of activity within the brain. Killers, more often than not, have greatly
reduced activity (as compared to the majority of people studied) within the
frontal lobe of their brain. This points
to a lack of programming and function within the lobe.
The frontal lobe,
most experts are coming to believe, works to suppress the array of (often
bizarre) urges and impulses fired into our daily thought processes by the more
feral regions of our brains. In a real
sense, the frontal lobe is the control panel for our personality and behavior.
If you stop and analyze
yourself, you will recognize how often a crazy impulse is your first thought. I must admit, I have had thoughts of smacking
someone with a baseball bat. And worse! This is not acceptable behavior. Most of us instantly resist these crazy impulses,
thinking, “I can’t stab to death the kid behind the cash register because he
shorted me a nickel in change—that’s insane.”
Unnaturally
violent and murderous people, however, seem to have a frontal lobe which is inhibited. They tend to act upon their feral urges. They burn to the ground houses blocking their
view. They steal all those things
desirable.
—Mitchell Hegman
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