Dr. Nigel Blackwood's Psychodynamic Study

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Dr. Nigel Blackwood and main author of the psychopathy study at King’s College in London (2012) conducted a case study that studied whether or not psychopathy is linked to certain structural abnormalities in the human brain. In this study 44 adult male offenders were chosen to be used as the subjects. These male adults were violent offenders, diagnosed with Anti-Social Personality Disorder (ASPD) and were given a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scan of their brains. These men committed murder, rape, attempted murder, and bodily harm. Not all of the men were able to be used, 17 met the psychopathy diagnosis while the other 27 did not. As a control in this experiment, they scanned the brains of 22 healthy non-offenders. The results in the experiment showed that those …show more content…

(2015), the researchers conducted a case study in order to understand how the anatomy of the brain associates with aggressive behavior in children. These researchers wanted to understand the difference between normal human behavior and psychopathology when looking at neuroanatomy of aggressive behavior. The subjects used in this study were selected from a population-based sample of six to nine years old. 556 children a part of a Generation R study that participated in the Berkeley Puppet and Interview as well as received a Magnetic resonance scan (MR). The parents were also used in this study where they had to complete a checklist about their child’s behavior. The results that the researchers gathered were that aggressive behavior was linked to smaller amygdala volume instead of hippocampal. The thinning of the left precentral cortex played a part in aggression including parts of the right inferior parietal, supramarginal and postcentral cortex. A decrease in gyrification in the right occipital and parietal cortex was associated with aggressive behavior as well. Cortical thickness is related to aggression but boys had a negative association whereas girls had a positive

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