Criminal behavior may be hard-wired in the brain, researchers find

Are some people born criminals?

Increasing evidence from neuroscience suggests that many aspects of antisocial behavior can be traced to dysfunctional brains. For instance, brain scans of prisoners suggest the circuitry involved in fear conditioning has gone awry in criminal minds. Deformities of certain parts of the brain that may contribute to antisocial and psychopathic behavior have also been linked to a greater risk of arrests and convictions.

For a definitive answer, scientists would have to scan the brains of thousands of young children, then check back decades later to see which ones went on to lead a life of crime. If the immature brains of the future criminals were different from the immature brains of law-abiding citizens, it would be a powerful piece of evidence that some people are biologically predisposed to criminal activity, according to a group of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, USC and the University of York in England.

That experiment is too ambitious, but the researchers did something similar.

In the early 1970s, they traveled to the island nation of Mauritius, off the eastern coast of Africa. They recruited 1,795 3-year-olds and gave them a test designed to measure whether their amygdalas – the part of the brain involved in processing fear – were developing normally.

The test involved a series of 12 tones. Some of them were pleasant. Others were higher-pitched and were followed by a jarring sound produced by “jangling metal objects,” according to a new report in The American Journal of Psychiatry.

The toddlers were hooked up to a polygraph to measure their reactions to the noises. The high-pitched tones were supposed to make them sweat in anticipation of the unpleasant sound, while the pleasant tones weren’t supposed to elicit much response at all.

Twenty years later, the researchers scoured court records to see whether any of their subjects had committed crimes involving violence, drugs, property or serious driving offenses. (Parking fines, expired car registrations, and other petty crimes weren’t counted.)

It turned out that 137 of the subjects – nearly 8% of the total – had criminal records. Looking back at their childhood tests, the scientists found that their reactions to the pleasant and high-pitched tones were the same. That was in stark contrast to the other subjects, who learned to fear the high-pitched tones and sweated accordingly. For the comparisons, criminals were matched with two non-offenders of the same age, gender, ethnicity and socioeconomic status.

The results suggest that criminal behavior may be hard-wired – to some degree – in children as young as 3 and could be the result of a malfunctioning amygdala, the researchers wrote. If they’re not afraid that their criminal behavior will land them in jail, what else will deter them?  The result, they wrote, is “a lack of conscience.”

-- Karen Kaplan

Photo: Was this arrest predetermined? Credit: Mark Wilson AFP/Getty Images

Do these genes make my heart seem big? Study finds a gene for empathy

In the long-running nature-nurture debate over what makes us who we are, chalk up a new victory for nature.

A study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has found a single coding variation in the human genome that appears responsible, at least in part, for individual variations in such personality and behavior traits as empathy and response to stress. 

The gene they looked at -- the OXTR gene -- carries the design and production blueprint for cells scattered throughout the heart, uterus, spinal cord and brain that serve as docking stations for a chemical called oxytocin.

Scientists have long known oxytocin as the chemical of bonding and nurture. Produced in the hypothalamus and pumped into both the brain and the bloodstream, oxytocin responds to warm human interaction and drives us to seek it out when our stores are low. It is thought to cause the letdown of milk in breastfeeding mothers, and to soar for many after lovemaking. At the same time, oxytocin appears to have a pronounced calming effect: people and mice alike seem to chill out when the chemical is puffed up their noses or pumped into their bloodstreams, even under conditions of stress.

These two qualities prompted research psychologists from Oregon State University and University of California Berkeley to ask themselves: If some people's genetic endowment made them richer in oxytocin receptors, might they not, by nature, be more attuned to others and more unflappable when under stress?

In the massively complex human genome, it's a daunting challenge to find a single site where a tiny variation in the code of inheritance might produce observable differences in behavior. Fortunately, the authors of the PNAS study had a few clues to guide them: Researchers had earlier found a site on the OXTR gene where certain variations brought with them a higher incidence of autism -- a disorder marked by impairments in social interaction and communication. Variations in this site also had been shown to predict how sensitively mothers responded to their offspring. Perhaps, they asked, coding variations at this same site would yield more subtle differences in a person's sociability and ability to withstand stress?

To make a long story short, they did. The researchers put 192 college students at UC Berkeley through a pair of experimental tests -- one that measured their ability to infer the emotional state of others from looking at their facial expressions and another that measured their jumpiness when warned that a loud blast of noise was imminent. The students also were asked to rate their own levels of empathy and ability to handle stressful situations.

The one in four subjects who inherited a variation in this allele called G/G were significantly better at accurately reading the emotions of others by observing their faces than were the remaining three-quarters of subjects, who had inherited either a pair of A's or an A and a G from their parents at this site. Compared to the three-fourths with A/A or A/G variations, the G/G individuals were also less likely to startle when blasted by a loud noise, or to become stressed at the prospect of such a noise. And by their own reports, the G/G subjects were mellower and more attuned to other people than were the A/As or A/Gs.

The group's findings would appear to strike a decisive blow for nature over nurture in shaping who we are and how we behave. In fact, subjects were asked to rate how nurturing their own parents were, and researchers found that a subject's genetic inheritance seemed a better predictor of his empathic disposition than did his mother and father's parenting styles.

But UC graduate student Laura R. Saslow, a co-author of the paper, cautioned that genetic inheritance -- nature -- is never the sole determinant of our personalities. While researchers will get closer to filling in the inborn components of our personalities, the environments in which we've been raised will always interact with our genetic inheritance and shape how it expresses itself, Saslow says.

"Really, both matter," says Saslow.

-- Melissa Healy

  

Making bad decisions can be contagious

People working in groups tend to become psychologically connected in a way that leads to less independent thinking and the tendency to buy into others' bad decisions, according to a new study.

Psychological research has long told us that people tend to honor their poor investments by escalating their level of commitment. For example, someone who buys a lemon of a car or a dilapidated house will, instead of owning up that it was a mistake and cutting their losses, continue to commit to the project and pour more money, effort and emotions into it.

That also appears to happen in group settings, such as in families or workplaces. Researchers at Northwestern University conducted four experiments along three different contexts: financial investments, personnel decisions and auctions. They found decision-makers justified others' initial decisions and escalated their own level of commitment to these decisions "even in the face of direct financial costs to themselves, and even among economics students trained in the irrationality of honoring sunk costs."

The lesson in the study, published this month in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, is that it's wise to consult with an outsider when you're facing problems.

"It's true that insiders have more knowledge," the lead author of the study, Adam Galinsky, told ScienceNOW Daily News. "But when you are already down the road of a failed course of action, you really need ... a true outsider."

-- Shari Roan

Photo: Steve Osman / Los Angeles Times

Do these genes make me drive poorly?

Cracking the human genome is a dense and seemingly impenetrable undertaking, what with our 46 chromosomes, more than 30,000 genes and 3 billion base pairs: It's hard to imagine that some tiny variation embedded in the middle of all that code could actually predict something like who will have to retake driver's ed three or four times just to pass the driving test.

Well, it can. In fact, according to a new study by researchers at UCI, a tiny variant in the genetic code can help predict whether its owner will be a lousy driver. Their study is published in a recent issue of the journal Cerebral Cortex.

Seven in 10 of us carry genetic instructions to flood certain regions of the brain with a neurochemical called brain-derived neurotrophic factor  -- or BDNF -- when we're challenged to learn a new aerobics routine, land a plane or navigate a tricky patch of road. It seems to help us learn to do new things.

But 30% of humans have a small variant in their genetic code that results in the release of smaller doses of BDNF when they're trying to master a new skill that involves physical coordination. These people have brains that are smaller in some key regions. Researchers have observed that when people with this genetic variant suffer a stroke with loss of motor function, they recover more slowly and less completely than those without the variant.

Could it be, asked researchers in the lab of UCI neuroscientist Steven Cramer, that when it comes to learning new things, this 30% of humans is just not as fast on the uptake?

To see, Cramer's team ran a series of experiments culminating in the driving challenge: 22 subjects had the genetic code that ordered up lots of BDNF when it came time to learn a new trick; seven had the genetic variant that coded for the release of less BDNF. Earlier experiments had already shown that compared with the smaller group with the genetic variant, the brains of those in the large group responded to the challenge of a new physical task with stronger activity in many more regions.

In the driving challenge -- learning to steer down a simulated winding road without drifting off the center line -- the group with the genetic variant made 20% more errors than the larger group, were slower to learn and, when tested again four days later, forgot more of what they had learned than had their peers without the variant in the BDNF gene.

Cramer said his team was astonished that a single-nucleotide polymorphism -- sometimes called a SNP -- would seem to yield such distinct differences in actual everyday behavior. Whether it influences how we learn every new task or has a cumulative effect in shaping the brain, said Cramer, this tiny genetic variant is powerful.

"Next time someone cuts you off on the freeway, one could conjecture that this could be part of the problem," said Cramer in an interview. (He adds that this knowledge hasn't make him feel more kindly toward offending motorists though.)

--Melissa Healy

Reality or imagination from mouths of babes? Balloon boy is but latest case

The saga of the Heene family continues as authorities prepare to possibly file charges next week regarding the boy-supposedly-in-the-balloon event that riveted the country. While bizarre stories continue to surface about father Richard Heene's past behavior, much of the focus has been on his 6-year-old son,+ Falcon, originally believed to have been in the balloon that floated away.

When Falcon uttered the words, "You said we did this for a show" to his father during a television interview, scrutiny intensified about the parents' actions and motives. Law enforcement, forensics experts and the public tried to figure out if the child was telling the truth or mixing in a little fantasy. The Heenes have denied that any hoax took place.

How a young child perceives fantasy and reality is discussed in the story "Out of the mouths of babes..." that appears on the Nation page today. Psychologists and psychiatrists weigh in whether or not a 6-year-old is capable of distinguishing real from pretend, saying that a number of different factors figure in, such as developmental levels, relationships with parents, and stress.

Kids may also have difficulty keeping track and making sense of information, especially in cases where an adult authority figure is coaching them, or asking them to stick to a story. "Depending on the situation, if you convince a child that certain facts are true," says James Hord, a Florida-based clinical psychologist, "he'll believe that. If later on he hears something different that doesn't meld with what he was told before, that presents a conflict for the child and it's going to result in mental gymnastics to try to make them fit. The child could pay a big cost."

-- Jeannine Stein

Photo: Falcon Heene. Phto credit: David Zalubowski / AP

Be a better person -- take a hike

Communing with nature not only lifts spirits, it helps people behave better, according to a study published Thursday.

Psychologists at the University of Rochester conducted four experiments with 370 people who were shown computer images of either natural settings, such as landscapes and lakes, or man-made settings, such as buildings and roads. The subjects were encouraged to look at the surroundings carefully, noting things like colors and textures and imagining things like sounds and smells. They then completed questionnaires about the importance of various values, such as wealth, fame, connectedness to community, relationships and the betterment of society.

In all four studies, people exposed to images of nature rated close relationships and community values higher than they had after observing man-made environments. The more deeply engaged people were in the natural settings, the more they valued community and closeness to others. The more intensely they focused on man-made settings, the more they valued fame and wealth.

Nature may influence people by helping them connect to their authentic selves, the authors suggest. After all, humans evolved in hunter-and-gatherer societies that depended on nature. Moreover, being in nature may help people relax, become more introspective, withdraw from the pressures of society and strip themselves of the artifices of society.

The study, published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, might help persuade urban planners to incorporate more parks, green space and nature into city life.

"We are influenced by our environment in ways that we are not aware of," the lead author of the study, Netta Weinstein, said in a news release. "The more you appreciate nature, the more you can benefit."

-- Shari Roan

Photo credit: Will Hart / Lake Tahoe Visitors Authority

Spanking lowers a child's IQ, researcher says

Being spanked as a child is linked to having a lower IQ, according to a study presented today at the International Conference on Violence, Abuse and Trauma in San Diego.

The relationship between spanking and intelligence is found in children around the world, said the lead author of the study, University of New Hampshire professor Murray Straus. Children in the United States who were spanked had lower IQs -- by 2.8 to 5 points -- than those who were not spanked, Straus found.

Straus studied 806 children ages 2 to 4 and 704 ages 5 to 9. Both groups were retested four years later. How often parents spanked influenced IQ score. "The more spanking, the slower the development of the child's mental ability," Straus said in a news release. "But even small amounts of spanking made a difference."

Straus and his colleagues looked at corporal punishment practices in 32 countries by surveying 17,404 university students. The analysis found a lower average IQ in nations in which spanking was more prevalent. The strongest link between corporal punishment and IQ was for those whose parents continued to use corporal punishment even when they were teenagers.

"It is ... time for the United States to begin making the advantages of not spanking a public health and child welfare focus, and eventually enact federal no-spanking legislation," he said.

How would spanking impact intelligence? Straus suggests that the chronic stress created by regular spanking creates post-traumatic stress symptoms in children. PTSD is linked to lower IQ. Economic status also underlies both spanking practices and IQ, Straus said, a leading researcher on corporal punishment. His studies were funded, in part, by the National Institute of Mental Health.
 
Another study, reported earlier this month in Booster Shots, found that many poor children are spanked at ages as young as 1 and that the practice is tied to more aggressive behavior by age 2 and delayed social-emotional development by age 3.

-- Shari Roan

Photos: The top chart shows the correlation between parents who use corporal punishment with teenagers and the nation's average IQ. The bottom chart shows the more spanking, the greater the likelihood of post-traumatic stress symptoms. Credit: Murray Straus, University of New Hampshire.

Why do some people ignore evacuation orders?

The recent wildfires and ensuing evacuation orders raise the touchy question of why some people refuse to leave their homes and risk their lives. Do they have a death wish? Long for a little excitement? Were they unable to leave?

A study of Katrina survivors, published this summer in the journal Psychological Science, found that none of those typical assumptions fit. Instead, the people who defied evacuation orders -- many of whom had limited financial resources -- did not feel powerless or passive but instead saw themselves as connected to their neighbors and dependent on each other. They also expressed their faith in God and strong feelings about caring for others.

Stanford psychologist Nicole Stephens conducted two surveys to compare the views of 461 outside observers with the perspectives of 79 New Orleans residents who either rode out Katrina (41 people) or evacuated (38). Detailed measures of the survivors' well-being, such as their mood, life satisfaction, mental health and drug and alcohol usage, were recorded. There were no significant differences in these factors between the people who stayed and those who left. Still, observers were derogatory in their views of the people who stayed, the study found, describing them as careless and dependent.

Relief workers and public officials should not assume that defying an evacuation order is simply a bad choice, the authors suggested, but a choice that reflects one's resources and personal perspectives.

Those who stayed "more often adjusted to their limited options by having faith and by actively maintaining hope despite hardship," the authors wrote. "One stayer stated, 'Through much prayers and faith in God, that's how we made it.' "

-- Shari Roan

Photo credit: Irwin Thompson  /  Associated Press / Dallas Morning News

Believing is seeing, psychologists say

Conventional wisdom holds that seeing is believing. But sometimes we believe and then we see, say the authors of a study published online this week in the journal Psychological Science.

An international team of researchers found that the way we originally think about the emotions of others -- based on facial expressions -- biases what we perceive and remember later. If we interpret a neutral look as angry or happy, for instance, that is how we'll remember it. The study sheds some light on how interpersonal misunderstandings occur.

The study was conducted by showing participants photographs of faces that express ambiguous emotion. The participants were instructed to think of these faces as angry or happy. They then watched movies of the faces slowly changing expression from angry to happy. The participants were asked to find the photograph they had originally seen among this set of morphing images. The faces that were interpreted as angry were remembered as expressing more anger than faces initially interpreted as happy. Watch the video here.

"We imagine our emotional expressions as unambiguous ways of communicating how we're feeling," a co-author of the study, said Jamin Halberstadt, of the University of Otago in New Zealand, in a news release. "But in real social interactions, facial expressions are blends of multiple emotions -- they are open to interpretation. This means that two people can have different recollections about the same emotional episode, yet both be correct about what they 'saw.' "

Halberstadt added: "It's a paradox. The more we seek meaning in other emotions, the less accurate we are in remembering them."

People probably experience this phenomenon multiple times each day. And there are important implications to the research. People who are socially anxious tend to have negative interpretations of others' reactions that may permanently color their perceptions of those people.

"The novel finding here is that our body is the interface: The place where thoughts and perceptions meet," said Piotr Winkielman, a psychology professor at UC San Diego, and co-author of the paper.

-- Shari Roan

Photo: Faces that were computer-morphed to express ambiguous emotion. Credit: Piotr Winkielman / UC, San Diego

Personal space is mostly in your head

You know that uncomfortable feeling when someone is encroaching on your personal space? Caltech scientists haven't found a way to alleviate that anxiety but they have discovered the spot in the brain where such feelings originate.

The researchers studied an unusual patient, a woman, 42, called SM, who had extensive damage to a part of the brain called the amygdala, which is known to process strong negative emotions. In prior studies, the researchers showed that this brain damage was responsible for SM's difficulty recognizing fear in the faces of others as well as judging trustworthiness. But the lead researcher, Ralph Adolphs, noticed that SM tended to "violate" what others perceived as personal space.

"She is extremely friendly, and she wants to approach people more than normal," another researcher, Daniel P. Kennedy, said in a news release.

The researchers compared SM with 20 volunteers in an experiment. The subjects were asked to walk toward a researcher and stop at the point where they feel most comfortable. The average preferred distance was about 2 feet. SM, however, preferred about 1 foot, and her preferred distance didn't change based on who the researcher was or how well she knew them. The volunteer subjects' brains were also examined using functional MRI. They could not see anyone present in the room, but the mere belief that someone was nearby caused their amygdalas to light up.

"It was just the idea of another person being there, or not, that triggered the amygdala," Kennedy said. The study shows that "the amygdala is involved in regulating social distance, independent of the specific sensory cues that are typically present when someone is standing close, like sounds, sights and smells."

People who live in crowded societies, such as Japan, appear to be more tolerant of close contact with others, the researchers note. Such customs can train the brain to respond to situations that are uncomfortable. "If you violate the accepted cultural distance, it will make people uncomfortable, and the amygdala will drive that feeling," Kennedy said.

The study could provide some insight into conditions, like autism, in which social distance is an issue. The research was published today in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

-- Shari Roan

Image credit: Caltech