Comments on: “The Mini-Madoffs” (NYTimes) http://www.keneisold.com/2009/01/the-mini-madoffs-nytimes/ whatyouknowyouknow Sat, 14 Jan 2012 03:31:25 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: BastiZ http://www.keneisold.com/2009/01/the-mini-madoffs-nytimes/#comment-8 BastiZ Thu, 05 Feb 2009 05:20:00 +0000 http://martinzager.com/eisold/2009/01/the-mini-madoffs-nytimes/#comment-8 The other day, I heard a lecture by James Blair, a psychologist at the NIMH. He showed brain scans of sociopaths that revealed a reduced response of their amygdala (the brains fear processor) to painful facial expressions. In sociopaths, there is an impaired connectivity between the OFC (orbital frontal cortex) and the amygdala, leading to weak moral reasoning. Sociopaths do not "represent" the "badness" of their actions in their cortex. They do not say to themselves: "I should not allow these actions to happen".<br/><br/>Given this knowledge, I believe, it is a no brainer that the reasoning of destructive personalities like Bernie Madoff should be scientifically evaluated. What do we have to gain by simply locking them up and stashing them away ? What a waste.<br/>Why not put Madoff's head into a brain scanner<br/>along with some of the mini madoffs that are out there and shine the light of science on their brains in action? We probably can learn something from them. This would be a great publicity coup for the field of neuroscience to educate our society about the deviant celebrity brain. After the lecture, I asked James Blair about scanning Bernie's brain. His first reaction was: "that would be only one". To that I say: What about the other mini madoffs?<br/>BastiZ The other day, I heard a lecture by James Blair, a psychologist at the NIMH. He showed brain scans of sociopaths that revealed a reduced response of their amygdala (the brains fear processor) to painful facial expressions. In sociopaths, there is an impaired connectivity between the OFC (orbital frontal cortex) and the amygdala, leading to weak moral reasoning. Sociopaths do not “represent” the “badness” of their actions in their cortex. They do not say to themselves: “I should not allow these actions to happen”.

Given this knowledge, I believe, it is a no brainer that the reasoning of destructive personalities like Bernie Madoff should be scientifically evaluated. What do we have to gain by simply locking them up and stashing them away ? What a waste.
Why not put Madoff’s head into a brain scanner
along with some of the mini madoffs that are out there and shine the light of science on their brains in action? We probably can learn something from them. This would be a great publicity coup for the field of neuroscience to educate our society about the deviant celebrity brain. After the lecture, I asked James Blair about scanning Bernie’s brain. His first reaction was: “that would be only one”. To that I say: What about the other mini madoffs?
BastiZ

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