Trigger for psychopaths actions can be in DNA

I DON’T like using labels but when it comes to psychopaths I don’t have the same qualms.

Few South Africans would argue the clear evidence that psychopaths are on the loose.

The farm murders, pre-meditated abductions and killings, hijacking, and rapes, all create a sewer of sorrows that slew precious human lives along as if they had no value. Most originate in the psychopathy of the perpetrators.

Because terror is translatable into any language and culture, the following statements, made by a famous psychopath in the US, could have been spoken by killers in our country,

“I didn't know what made people want to be friends. I didn't know what made people attractive to one another. I didn't know what underlay social interactions. I don't feel guilty for anything. I feel sorry for people who feel guilt. I’m as cold as (expletive removed) as . . . you've ever put your eyes on. I don't give a . . . (expletive removed) about those people [his victims].”

These are just a few of the Ted Bundy quotes you can find if you troll the internet. Ted Bundy. (1946 – executed 1989) was an American serial killer, kidnapper, rapist, and necrophile who assaulted and murdered young women and girls during the 1970s. Shortly before his execution, he confessed to 30 homicides committed in seven states between 1974 and 1978. The true victim count remains unknown. What’s frustrating is we still don’t know what causes someone to become a psychopath – and not all psychopaths become killers.

The famous “Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart” looked into whether psychopathic traits are a result of nature or nurture.

This project led by Minnesota Professor of Psychology Thomas Joseph Bouchard, Jr has shown that psychopathy is 60% heritable, suggesting that the traits are due more to DNA than to upbringing.

Psychology Today records a study at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in which brain scans showed that psychopathic criminals have decreased connectivity between the amygdala, a subcortical structure of the brain that processes negative stimuli, and the ventromedial pre-frontal cortex (vmPFC), a region in the front of the brain that interprets the response from the amygdala. When the connectivity between these two regions is low, no strongly felt, negative emotions are generated.

This fits well into the picture we have of psychopaths. They do not feel nervous or embarrassed when they are caught doing something bad. They do not feel sad when other people suffer.

There are no doubt, developmental and social factors that help produce the psychopathic killer, but the key question is whether psychopaths can be rehabilitated? If people with autism can be programmed to follow the rules of society, can psychopaths? And even if reprogrammed, can violent perpetrators ever be released into society again?

Should life-takers with no conscience and little chance of rehabilitating, have the right to live?

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