Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> Crime and Consequences

Criminal Law

: Crime and Consequences

A Case of Overclaim Syndrome?

By Kent Scheidegger et al.

Brain Overclaim Syndrome is pernicious in contemporary legal and behavioral science scholarship. Evidence of its infectious reach now appears in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science in the article From Genes to Brain to Antisocial Behavior (subscription required) by the Professor Adrian Raine at the University of Pennsylvania. The abstract: This review summarizes recent brain-imaging and molecular-genetic findings on antisocial, violent, and psychopathic behavior. A "genes to brain to antisocial behavior" model hypothesizes that specific genes result in structural and functional brain alterations that, in turn, predispose to antisocial behavior. For instance, a common polymorphism in the monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) gene has been associated with both antisocial behavior and also reductions in the volume of the amygdala and orbitofrontal (ventral prefrontal) cortex?brain structures that are found to be compromised in antisocial individuals...continue to full post

Full post as published by Crime and Consequences on November 11, 2008 (boomark / email).