>After learning his violent family history, he examined the images and
>compared them with the brains of psychopaths. His wife's scan was
>normal. His mother: normal. His siblings: normal. His children:
>normal.
>
>"And I took a look at my own PET scan and saw something disturbing
>that I did not talk about," he says.
>
>What he didn't want to reveal was that his orbital cortex looks inactive.
>
>"If you look at the PET scan, I look just like one of those killers."
The article says you need one more thing though:
>according to scientists who study this area.
>They believe that brain patterns and genetic
>makeup are not enough to make anyone a
>psychopath. You need a third ingredient: abuse or violence in one's childhood.
That looks to be what happened with Willie Bosket:
http://www.powells.com/biblio?isbn=9780307280336
A timely reissue of Fox Butterfields masterpiece, All Gods Children, a searing examination of the caustic cumulative effect of racism and violence over 5 generations of black Americans.
Willie Bosket is a brilliant, violent man who began his criminal career at age five; his slaying of two subway riders at fifteen led to the passage of the first law in the nation allowing teenagers to be tried as adults. Butterfield traces the Bosket family back to their days as South Carolina slaves and documents how Willie is the culmination of generations of neglect, cruelty, discrimination and brutality directed at black Americans. From the terrifying scourge of the Ku Klux Klan during Reconstruction to the brutal streets of 1970s New York, this is an unforgettable examination of the painful roots of violence and racism in America.
Review:
“A heartbreaking and terrifying chronicle of violence passed from one African-American generation to the next. . . . The force of the narrative is extraordinary.” The New Yorker
Review:
“If posterity knows what it is doing, this book will be considered a classic of the violent decades.” The Atlantic Monthly
Review:
“An extraordinary book. . . . A stimulating and chilling account of violence in America.” The Boston Globe
About the Author
Fox Butterfield is the author of China: Alive in the Bitter Sea, which won the National Book Award. He was a mamember of the New York Times reporting team that won the Pulitzer Prize for its publication of the Pentagon Papers, and has served as a correspondant for the newspaper in Boston, Washington, DC, New York, South Vietnam, Japan, Hong Kong, and China--where he opened the Beijing bureau in 1979. He is currently a national correspondant for the Times, writing about crime and violence. He lives near Boston with his family.