TED2009
Jim Fallon: Exploring the mind of a killer
Filmed:
Readability: 3.4
2,772,955 views
Psychopathic killers are the basis for some must-watch TV, but what really makes them tick? Neuroscientist Jim Fallon talks about brain scans and genetic analysis that may uncover the rotten wiring in the nature (and nurture) of murderers. In a too-strange-for-fiction twist, he shares a fascinating family history that makes his work chillingly personal.
Jim Fallon - Neurobiologist
Sloan Scholar, Fulbright Fellow, Professor Emeritus of Neuroscience, Jim Fallon looks at the way nature and nurture intermingle to wire up the human brain. Full bio
Sloan Scholar, Fulbright Fellow, Professor Emeritus of Neuroscience, Jim Fallon looks at the way nature and nurture intermingle to wire up the human brain. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:18
I'm a neuroscientist, a professor at the University of California.
0
0
3000
00:21
And over the past 35 years,
1
3000
3000
00:24
I've studied behavior
2
6000
2000
00:26
on the basis of everything from genes
3
8000
3000
00:29
through neurotransmitters, dopamine, things like that,
4
11000
2000
00:31
all the way through circuit analysis.
5
13000
2000
00:33
So that's what I normally do.
6
15000
2000
00:35
But then, for some reason,
7
17000
2000
00:37
I got into something else, just recently.
8
19000
2000
00:39
And it all grew out of one of my colleagues asking me
9
21000
3000
00:42
to analyze a bunch of brains
10
24000
2000
00:44
of psychopathic killers.
11
26000
2000
00:46
And so this would be the typical talk I would give.
12
28000
3000
00:49
And the question is, "How do you end up with a psychopathic killer?"
13
31000
3000
00:52
What I mean by psychopathic killer
14
34000
2000
00:54
are these people, these types of people.
15
36000
2000
00:56
And so some of the brains that I've studied
16
38000
2000
00:58
are people you know about.
17
40000
2000
01:00
When I get the brains I don't know what I'm looking at.
18
42000
2000
01:02
It's blind experiments. They also gave me normal people and everything.
19
44000
2000
01:04
So I've looked at about 70 of these.
20
46000
2000
01:06
And what came up was a number of pieces of data.
21
48000
3000
01:09
So we look at these sorts of things theoretically,
22
51000
3000
01:12
on the basis of genetics,
23
54000
2000
01:14
and brain damage, and interaction with environment,
24
56000
3000
01:17
and exactly how that machine works.
25
59000
2000
01:19
So we're interested in exactly where in the brain,
26
61000
2000
01:21
and what's the most important part of the brain.
27
63000
2000
01:23
So we've been looking at this:
28
65000
3000
01:26
the interaction of genes,
29
68000
2000
01:28
what's called epigenetic effects,
30
70000
2000
01:30
brain damage, and environment,
31
72000
2000
01:32
and how these are tied together.
32
74000
2000
01:34
And how you end up with a psychopath, and a killer,
33
76000
2000
01:36
depends on exactly when the damage occurs.
34
78000
3000
01:39
It's really a very precisely timed thing.
35
81000
3000
01:42
You get different kinds of psychopaths.
36
84000
2000
01:44
So we're going along with this. And here's, just to give you the pattern.
37
86000
3000
01:47
The pattern is that those people, every one of them I looked at,
38
89000
3000
01:50
who was a murderer, and was a serial killer,
39
92000
3000
01:53
had damage to their orbital cortex,
40
95000
2000
01:55
which is right above the eyes, the orbits,
41
97000
2000
01:57
and also the interior part of the temporal lobe.
42
99000
2000
01:59
So there is the pattern that every one of them had,
43
101000
2000
02:01
but they all were a little different too.
44
103000
2000
02:03
They had other sorts of brain damage.
45
105000
2000
02:05
A key thing is that
46
107000
2000
02:07
the major violence genes,
47
109000
3000
02:10
it's called the MAO-A gene.
48
112000
3000
02:13
And there is a variant of this gene that is in the normal population.
49
115000
4000
02:17
Some of you have this. And it's sex-linked.
50
119000
3000
02:20
It's on the X chromosome. And so in this way
51
122000
2000
02:22
you can only get it from your mother.
52
124000
3000
02:25
And in fact this is probably why mostly men, boys,
53
127000
4000
02:29
are psychopathic killers,
54
131000
2000
02:31
or are very aggressive.
55
133000
2000
02:33
Because a daughter can get one X from the father,
56
135000
3000
02:36
one X from the mother, it's kind of diluted out.
57
138000
2000
02:38
But for a son, he can only get
58
140000
2000
02:40
the X chromosome from his mother.
59
142000
2000
02:42
So this is how it's passed from mother to son.
60
144000
3000
02:45
And it has to do with too much brain serotonin during development,
61
147000
4000
02:49
which is kind of interesting because serotonin
62
151000
2000
02:51
is supposed to make you calm and relaxed.
63
153000
3000
02:54
But if you have this gene, in utero
64
156000
3000
02:57
your brain is bathed in this,
65
159000
2000
02:59
so your whole brain becomes insensitive to serotonin,
66
161000
2000
03:01
so it doesn't work later on in life.
67
163000
3000
03:04
And I'd given this one talk in Israel,
68
166000
3000
03:07
just this past year.
69
169000
2000
03:09
And it does have some consequences.
70
171000
2000
03:11
Theoretically what this means
71
173000
2000
03:13
is that in order to express this gene,
72
175000
3000
03:16
in a violent way,
73
178000
2000
03:18
very early on, before puberty,
74
180000
2000
03:20
you have to be involved in something that is really traumatic --
75
182000
3000
03:23
not a little stress, not being spanked or something,
76
185000
2000
03:25
but really seeing violence,
77
187000
2000
03:27
or being involved in it, in 3D.
78
189000
2000
03:29
Right? That's how the mirror neuron system works.
79
191000
2000
03:31
And so, if you have that gene,
80
193000
3000
03:34
and you see a lot of violence
81
196000
3000
03:37
in a certain situation,
82
199000
2000
03:39
this is the recipe for disaster, absolute disaster.
83
201000
3000
03:42
And what I think might happen in these areas of the world,
84
204000
3000
03:45
where we have constant violence,
85
207000
3000
03:48
you end up having generations of kids
86
210000
3000
03:51
that are seeing all this violence.
87
213000
2000
03:53
And if I was a young girl, somewhere in a violent area,
88
215000
3000
03:56
you know, a 14 year old, and I want to find a mate,
89
218000
2000
03:58
I'd find some tough guy, right, to protect me.
90
220000
3000
04:01
Well what the problem is this tends to concentrate these genes.
91
223000
4000
04:05
And now the boys and the girls get them.
92
227000
2000
04:07
So I think after several generations,
93
229000
2000
04:09
and here is the idea, we really have a tinderbox.
94
231000
3000
04:12
So that was the idea.
95
234000
2000
04:14
But then my mother said to me, "I hear you've been going around talking
96
236000
2000
04:16
about psychopathic killers.
97
238000
3000
04:19
And you're talking as if you come from a normal family."
98
241000
3000
04:22
I said, "What the hell are you talking about?"
99
244000
2000
04:24
She then told me about our own family tree.
100
246000
3000
04:27
Now she blamed this on my father's side, of course.
101
249000
2000
04:29
This was one of these cases, because she has no violence in her background,
102
251000
4000
04:33
but my father did.
103
255000
2000
04:35
Well she said, "There is good news and bad news.
104
257000
2000
04:37
One of your cousins is Ezra Cornell, founder of Cornell university.
105
259000
3000
04:40
But the bad news is that your cousin is also Lizzie Borden.
106
262000
3000
04:43
Now I said, "Okay, so what? We have Lizzie."
107
265000
7000
04:50
She goes, "No it gets worse, read this book."
108
272000
2000
04:52
And here is this "Killed Strangely," and it's this historical book.
109
274000
2000
04:54
And the first murder
110
276000
2000
04:56
of a mother by a son
111
278000
2000
04:58
was my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather.
112
280000
3000
05:01
Okay, so that's the first case of matricide.
113
283000
3000
05:04
And that book is very interesting. Because it's about witch trials,
114
286000
3000
05:07
and how people thought back then.
115
289000
2000
05:09
But it doesn't stop there.
116
291000
2000
05:11
There were seven more men, on my father's side,
117
293000
3000
05:14
starting then, Cornells, that were all murderers.
118
296000
4000
05:18
Okay, now this gives one a little pause.
119
300000
3000
05:21
(Laughter)
120
303000
2000
05:23
Because my father himself,
121
305000
2000
05:25
and my three uncles, in World War II,
122
307000
2000
05:27
were all conscientious objectors, all pussycats.
123
309000
3000
05:30
But every once in a while, like Lizzie Borden, like three times a century,
124
312000
2000
05:32
and we're kind of due.
125
314000
2000
05:34
(Laughter)
126
316000
3000
05:37
So the moral of the story is:
127
319000
2000
05:39
people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
128
321000
2000
05:41
But more likely is this.
129
323000
3000
05:44
(Laughter)
130
326000
4000
05:48
And we had to take action. Now our kids found out about it.
131
330000
3000
05:51
And they all seemed to be OK.
132
333000
2000
05:53
But our grandkids are going to be kind of concerned here.
133
335000
3000
05:56
So what we've done is I've started to do PET scans
134
338000
3000
05:59
of everybody in the family.
135
341000
2000
06:01
(Laughter)
136
343000
1000
06:02
We started to do PET scans, EEGs and genetic analysis
137
344000
3000
06:05
to see where the bad news is.
138
347000
2000
06:07
Now the only person -- it turns out
139
349000
2000
06:09
one son and one daughter, siblings,
140
351000
3000
06:12
didn't get along and their patterns are exactly the same.
141
354000
2000
06:14
They have the same brain, and the same EEG.
142
356000
3000
06:17
And now they are close as can be.
143
359000
3000
06:20
But there's gonna be bad news somewhere.
144
362000
2000
06:22
And we don't know where it's going to pop up.
145
364000
2000
06:24
So that's my talk.
146
366000
2000
06:26
(Laughter)
147
368000
1000
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Jim Fallon - NeurobiologistSloan Scholar, Fulbright Fellow, Professor Emeritus of Neuroscience, Jim Fallon looks at the way nature and nurture intermingle to wire up the human brain.
Why you should listen
Jim Fallon has taught neuroscience and psychiatry grand rounds at the University of California Irvine for thirty-five years. Through research he explores the way genetic and perinatal environmental factors affect the way the brain gets built -- and then how an individual's experience further shapes his or her development. He lectures and writes on creativity, consciousness and culture, and has made key contributions to our understanding of adult stems and stroke, schizophrenia, Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease.
Only lately has Fallon turned his research toward the subject of psychopaths -- particularly those who kill. With PET scans and EEGs, he's beginning to uncover the deep, underlying traits that make people violent and murderous. In his talk at TEDDIY at TED@PalmSprings, he shared a surprise discovery about his own family that prompted him to bring his work home.
Watch his followup talk from The Moth at the 2011 World Science Festival >>
Jim Fallon | Speaker | TED.com