Aggressive Behavior
Mon, 2007-12-03 23:09 - Niels
from: http://www.psy.vanderbilt.edu/faculty/sohee/Publications/Raine_Park.pdf
While brain imaging research is beginning to build an important body of knowledge on brain mechanisms that are involved in predisposing to violence, there are three major gaps in knowledge in this field. First, to the authors’ knowledge, nothing is known about brain functioning in noninstitutionalized adults in the community who perpetrate serious violence. Second, there appears to have been no published study on brain functioning that attempts to understand why some individuals who have experienced severe physical abuse early in childhood do not go on to perpetrate serious violence. Indeed, there appears to have been little or no biological research of any type on either of these issues. Third, there has, to our knowledge, been no prior functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study of any violent or antisocial group.
The relationship between physical child abuse and violence is well established [Lewis et al., 1988; Tarter et al., 1984; Widom, 1997]. In surprising contrast, there seems to be little or no research on factors that differentiate abused victims who go on to perpetrate violence from those who refrain from adult violence.
The current study set out to provide initial data to help address these unexplored issues.
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Subjective versus Objective information in a study
It seems odd to me that in a compare-contrast test, more objective child history information, such as foster-care status, and child-care placement factors were not taken into account for this small all-male sampled study.
For instance, couldn't later violence be the result of rage-related triggers based on one's life experience and feelings of displacement? [See "Poetic Justice, family-style" http://poundpuplegacy.org/node/12581#comment-2902 ]
Notice what isn't mentioned in the fMRI study:
the link
The child-placement angle is indeed nowhere available in the entire article and as far as my googling can reach there is not done any brain study on placees (adoptees or people from foster-care etc.) and certainly not using techniques as fMRI. Like What scientific studies have been done to study child placement/adoption? already made clear there is much study lacking into the understanding of placees. The criminal mind being understudied as well, the combination of placees ending up in prison is the badlands of science. At the same time the over-representation in the prison system is established and something forster-care professionals are aware of. How can we get this on the agenda? In the end it is in everybodies interest to get a much better understanding of the consequences of placement and abuse and of the causes of violence and continued abuse. Only when we have understanding can we make proper decisions over when child-placement is effectively in a child's best interest and when imprisonment is an effective measure when people break the law. It keeps us in a barbaric state as long as that is not properly researched.
Learned Behavior
Learned behavior is based on environmental factors, and has been researched extensively , as Dario Maestripieri did in his abuse study featured here: "Monkey Business" http://poundpuplegacy.org/node/2225
When I wrote to him, asking if he would be interested in studying the effects of abuse on the adopted human, his main concern was not if there would be interest in such a study, but if there would be funding for this study. It never occurred to me that would be such an issue!
Contact after contact in the private sector led me to the same conclusions: no government wants to know the answer to the question: does maternal loss alter brain development, especially if it can be proven with modern technology like fMRI or MEG scanning.
So what can be tested or proven that would interest the government? Placement theories?
How about learning skills, and how they relate to what a person is born with, versus what he is taught his whole life? ["Can a person learn new ways of changing old patterns of behavior?"] Is a person born a criminal or simply pushed to become one? Does silence trigger violence in some? Does brightness hit different nerves and cause different sensitivities in some? Does voice tone or pitch make a difference in how something is received in the brain?
Take two abused individuals, one adopted and one not. Will those brain images show the same areas of associated use and activity, or not? Can one learn better than the other, or do both learn differently because different areas of the brain were affected by abuse and or abandonment? Can trust be measured in the brain as a function of understanding or feeling?
How does neglect affect the brain; is loss different than trauma? Can loss (trust) be regained in the brain, without the use of drugs?
How does timing of placement affect cognitive and emotional development, and language skills? How does this all translate in real-life experience and coping with daily stress? "Cause and effect" needs to be reviewed as "cause and reaction", so better learning and teaching skills can be offered to those who need it most. All one has to do is look at our prison population to see how violence affects another person, and society as a whole.
Removing "a problem" is one way to deal with a situation, however ignoring all it's consequences is not always smart, is it? I find this especially true if people are being seen as "the problem" and those problems are given pills as solutions, (to help deal or "cope" with a newly given situation.)
I believe too much medication is being passed-out to solve too many problems, when not enough time or attention is given to study the root of the problem.
Does family-trading cost us more, in than end, than if we just spent more time protecting what was created by two people in the first place?
Who would know the answer to this?