Anti-social Behavior And Brain Structure

In its psychiatry-focused section, the Lancet has published its latest study of the human brain, conducted by University College London (UCL) in February 2020. The article examines the link between antisocial behavior and brain structure. What is antisocial behavior and who has it?

The study was conducted in collaboration with UCL London and researchers from New Zealand. Participants in the study were obtained from Queen Mary Hospital, New Zealand.

Magnetic images of more than 600 individuals who were 45 years of age at the time of imaging were taken for the study. These 600 people were part of a larger unit consisting of more than 1,000 people. They have been studied by New Zealanders since childhood.

The purpose was to find out the factors that can affect a person through life and make him or her antisocial or addictive. If these factors were identified, they could be positively influenced and crime prevented, for example.

The magnetic resonance imaging of the subjects in the study measured the thickness of their cortex and the amount of gray matter. This data allowed a comparison between people who experienced antisocial behavior and people who did not.

What is antisocial behavior and what kind of person is antisocial?

What exactly is antisocial behavior? This is a difficult concept to define, as it varies depending on a person’s age and culture. Europeans may have a different perception of antisocial behavior than Americans.

Anti-social behavior could be defined as any act of a person that is contrary to the interests of his society. That is, as a way of life and activity that violates the norms set by the majority population.

Anti-social behavior ranges from traffic offenses to violent crimes. Behavior of teen addict could also fall into this category, such as stealing alcohol from adults.

Underlying the anti-social behavior is the fact that a person is rebelling against authority – even their own parents or the police. One can also understand this behavior as challenging established institutions.

There is no need for any pathology associated with antisocial behavior. In most cases, this is just a disordered behavior that does not occur in the clinical psychiatry literature.

However, science has also defined a condition known as antisocial personality disorder in which a person is impulsive and repeatedly breaks the rules without regretting his or her transgressions. This diagnosis can only be made on people over 18 years of age.

Research results

A study published in the Lancet shows that participants were divided into three groups:

• 80 people had a history of antisocial behavior.
• In 151 people, antisocial behavior was limited to adolescence.
• 441 people had no previous background in antisocial behavior.

The researchers found something significant in the first group. It could be seen from the magnetic resonance images that the cerebral cortex of these people had shrunk compared to the other participants, and in addition, they had somewhat less brain gray matter.

No differences were observed between the other two groups, those who had experienced antisocial behavior in adolescence and those who did not have a similar background. This reveals that a certain type of behavior at a young age is more culturally related than biological.

There is an obvious change in brain structure that a small portion of the population may have, perhaps related to antisocial behaviors. Those changes might explain why an antisocial personality manifests itself in some years.

Previous studies of antisocial behavior and the brain

The results published in the Lancet are just one addition to previous research on the subject. Several universities have studied this topic at different ages and in different countries.

For example, changes in the forehead and temporal areas of the brain have been observed in teens with antisocial behavior problems. In particular, there is less gray matter in the brains of those convicted of violence.

More specifically, the researchers were familiar with the emotional area of ​​the brain to find a link between antisocial behavior , as they assumed these problems were related to a lack of empathy, making it logical to look for changes in these areas of the brain. The results showed that antisocial teens had a smaller almond nucleus, and the almond nucleus is the center of empathy.

We can conclude that this new study confirms that antisocial behavior is related to brain structure. These changes are one more factor that influences the manifestation of antisocial behavior in human life.