Posts Tagged ‘rage’
A Gunman’s Regret
Science can help society grapple with the horrors of modern gun violence …A death row inmate wrote to say that something I had written had helped him understand how his life derailed. If he had read this material on the neuroscience of violence earlier in his life, he wrote, “I might not be here today.”…
Read MoreTrump’s Victory and the Neuroscience of Rage
To understand this election you must understand the brain’s threat detection mechanism Pollsters, politicians, much of the press and public are dismayed by Donald Trump’s surprising victory in the presidential election, but not neuroscientists. The bewilderment arises from an attempt to comprehend the election result rationally, but rage, not reason, is what drove people to…
Read MoreBrexit from a Neuroscience Perspective
A surprising outcome of my four-year investigation into the neuroscience of human aggression for my new book Why We Snap, was how the reductionist approach that I took to understand individual violent behavior in terms of the specific neural circuits responsible, exploded in scope to illuminate human aggressive behavior in mass–between groups of people, from…
Read MoreThe Neuroscience of Violence
We are on the brink of a new understanding of the neuroscience of violence. Like detectives slipping a fiber optic camera under a door, neuroscientists insert a fiber optic microcamera into the brain of an experimental animal and watch the neural circuits of rage respond during violent behavior.
Read MoreTo Flee or Freeze? Neural Circuits of Threat Detection Identified
Suddenly something streaks into your peripheral vision. Instantly, you jump back and raise your arms defensively. “What was that!” You exclaim in shock. Only then do you realize that the blurred streak you just dodged was a wayward basketball zinging like a missile on a collision course for your face. A rush of adrenaline flushes…
Read MoreWhen Crying Triggers Murder
Crying provoke positive, supportive, caregiving responses, as well as negative, destructive, responses.
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