I'm a neuroscientist, a professor at the University of California. And over the past 35 years, I've studied behavior on the basis of everything from genes through neurotransmitters, dopamine, things like that, all the way through circuit analysis. So that's what I normally do. But then, for some reason, I got into something else, just recently. And it all grew out of one of my colleagues asking me to analyze a bunch of brains of psychopathic killers.
Son neurocientífico e profesor na Universidade de California. Durante os últimos 35 anos, estudei o comportamento baseándome en todo, dende os xenes pasando polos neurotransmisores, dopamina, e cousas polo estilo, ata chegar á análise de circuítos. Iso é o que adoito facer. Pero recentemente, por algunha razón, intereseime por outra cousa. Isto comezou cando un dos meus colegas me pediu que analizase unha serie de cerebros de asasinos psicópatas.
And so this would be the typical talk I would give. And the question is, "How do you end up with a psychopathic killer?" What I mean by psychopathic killer are these people, these types of people. And so some of the brains that I've studied are people you know about. When I get the brains I don't know what I'm looking at. It's blind experiments. They also gave me normal people and everything.
Esta sería a típica charla que eu daría. A pregunta é: como se converte alguén nun asasino psicópata? Cando digo asasino psicópata refírome a estas persoas, este tipo de persoas. Algúns dos cerebros que estudei son de xente que coñecen. Cando recibo cerebros, non sei o que teño diante miña. Son experimentos a cegas. Tamén recibín cerebros de xente normal.
So I've looked at about 70 of these. And what came up was a number of pieces of data. So we look at these sorts of things theoretically, on the basis of genetics, and brain damage, and interaction with environment, and exactly how that machine works. So we're interested in exactly where in the brain, and what's the most important part of the brain. So we've been looking at this: the interaction of genes, what's called epigenetic effects, brain damage, and environment, and how these are tied together. And how you end up with a psychopath, and a killer, depends on exactly when the damage occurs. It's really a very precisely timed thing. You get different kinds of psychopaths.
Xa estudei uns 70 deste tipo. E o que obtiven foron unha serie de datos. Examinamos este tipo de cousas de xeito teórico, tomando como base a xenética, os danos cerebrais, a interacción co medio e a forma na que esa máquina funciona. Estamos interesados en determinar o lugar exacto do cerebro e cal é a parte máis importante do cerebro. Entón estudamos todo isto: a interacción entre xenes, denominada efectos epixenéticos, o dano cerebral e o medio, e como estes se relacionan entre si. A forma na que alguén se converte en psicópata e asasino depende do momento exacto no que se produce o dano. É algo que ten lugar nun momento moi preciso. Hai diferentes tipos de psicópatas.
So we're going along with this. And here's, just to give you the pattern. The pattern is that those people, every one of them I looked at, who was a murderer, and was a serial killer, had damage to their orbital cortex, which is right above the eyes, the orbits, and also the interior part of the temporal lobe. So there is the pattern that every one of them had, but they all were a little different too. They had other sorts of brain damage. A key thing is that the major violence genes, it's called the MAO-A gene.
Entón imos seguir con esta idea. Aquí poden ver o patrón. O patrón é que aquelas persoas, cada unha das que estudei, que eran asasinas e asasinas en serie presentaban danos no córtex orbital, que está xusto por enriba dos ollos, das órbitas, e tamén na parte interior do lóbulo temporal. Este era o patrón que todos eles tiñan, pero tamén eran algo diferentes. Tiñan outros tipos de dano cerebral. Un elemento clave reside no principal xene da violencia, coñecido como xene MAO-A.
And there is a variant of this gene that is in the normal population. Some of you have this. And it's sex-linked. It's on the X chromosome. And so in this way you can only get it from your mother. And in fact this is probably why mostly men, boys, are psychopathic killers, or are very aggressive. Because a daughter can get one X from the father, one X from the mother, it's kind of diluted out. But for a son, he can only get the X chromosome from his mother.
Hai unha variante deste xene que está presente na poboación normal. Algúns de vostedes posúeno. Está ligado ao sexo. Atópase no cromosoma X. Deste xeito, só pode herdarse a través da nai. Este é quizais o motivo polo que homes e nenos na súa maioría tenden a ser asasinos psicópatas ou amosan moita agresividade. Xa que unha filla pode obter un X do pai e un X da nai, o resultado queda un pouco diluído. Porén, un fillo só pode obter o cromosoma X da súa nai.
So this is how it's passed from mother to son. And it has to do with too much brain serotonin during development, which is kind of interesting because serotonin is supposed to make you calm and relaxed. But if you have this gene, in utero your brain is bathed in this, so your whole brain becomes insensitive to serotonin, so it doesn't work later on in life.
Así é como se pasa de nai a fillo. E ten que ver co exceso de serotonina no cerebro durante o desenvolvemento, o cal é interesante porque se supón que a serotonina ten efecto calmante e relaxante. Pero se se posúe este xene, dentro do útero o cerebro bañarase en serotonina e converterase en completamente insensible a ela, polo que esta non funcionará posteriormente.
And I'd given this one talk in Israel, just this past year. And it does have some consequences. Theoretically what this means is that in order to express this gene, in a violent way, very early on, before puberty, you have to be involved in something that is really traumatic -- not a little stress, not being spanked or something, but really seeing violence, or being involved in it, in 3D. Right? That's how the mirror neuron system works.
Dei esta mesma charla en Israel o ano pasado. E tivo algunhas consecuencias. En teoría, o que isto significa é que para que este xene se exprese de xeito violento, precísase participar a unha idade temperá, antes da puberdade, en algo realmente traumático. Non algo de estrés, nin recibir un azoute ou algo así, senón presenciar violencia real ou estar involucrado nela, en 3D. Vale? Así funciona o sistema de neuronas espello.
And so, if you have that gene, and you see a lot of violence in a certain situation, this is the recipe for disaster, absolute disaster. And what I think might happen in these areas of the world, where we have constant violence, you end up having generations of kids that are seeing all this violence. And if I was a young girl, somewhere in a violent area, you know, a 14 year old, and I want to find a mate, I'd find some tough guy, right, to protect me. Well what the problem is this tends to concentrate these genes. And now the boys and the girls get them. So I think after several generations, and here is the idea, we really have a tinderbox.
Polo tanto, se se ten ese xene e se ve moita violencia nunha determinada situación, esta é a receita para o desastre, o desastre absoluto. O que penso que podería ocorrer nesas zonas do mundo, onde hai unha violencia constante é que acabe habendo xeracións de nenos que presencien toda esta violencia. Se eu fose unha moza de 14 anos que vivise nunha zona violenta, e quixese atopar unha parella, buscaría un tipo duro que me protexese. O problema está en que isto tende a concentrar estes xenes, e agora recíbenos tanto os nenos como as nenas. Así que creo que despois de varias xeracións, e esta é a idea, temos unha verdadeira bomba de reloxaría.
So that was the idea. But then my mother said to me, "I hear you've been going around talking about psychopathic killers. And you're talking as if you come from a normal family." I said, "What the hell are you talking about?" She then told me about our own family tree. Now she blamed this on my father's side, of course. This was one of these cases, because she has no violence in her background, but my father did.
Así que disto se trata. Pero logo a miña nai díxome: "Escoitei que andas por aí a falar de asasinos psicópatas. E falas como se viñeras dunha familia normal". E dixen: "De que raios estás a falar?" Entón faloume da nosa propia árbore xenealóxica. Por suposto, ela culpou a miña familia paterna. Este era un deses casos, xa que ela non procede dun contorno violento; pero o meu pai si.
Well she said, "There is good news and bad news. One of your cousins is Ezra Cornell, founder of Cornell university. But the bad news is that your cousin is also Lizzie Borden.
Ela dixo: "Teño boas e malas noticias. Un dos teus curmáns era Ezra Cornell, o fundador da Universidade Cornell. Pero a mala noticia é que Lizzie Borden tamén é a túa curmá".
Now I said, "Okay, so what? We have Lizzie."
(Risas) E respondinlle: "Vale, e que? Temos a Lizzie na familia".
She goes, "No it gets worse, read this book."
E dixo: "Non, é peor aínda. Le este libro".
And here is this "Killed Strangely," and it's this historical book. And the first murder of a mother by a son was my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather. Okay, so that's the first case of matricide. And that book is very interesting. Because it's about witch trials, and how people thought back then.
Aquí o temos, <i>Killed Strangely</i>, un libro histórico. O primeiro asasinato dunha nai a mans do seu fillo, que era o meu tátara-tátara-tátara- tátaravó. Ben, entón ese é o primeiro caso de matricidio. O libro é moi interesante, porque trata sobre as cazas de bruxas e como a xente pensaba naquel tempo.
But it doesn't stop there. There were seven more men, on my father's side, starting then, Cornells, that were all murderers. Okay, now this gives one a little pause. (Laughter) Because my father himself, and my three uncles, in World War II, were all conscientious objectors, all pussycats. But every once in a while, like Lizzie Borden, like three times a century, and we're kind of due. (Laughter)
Pero isto non remata aquí. Había sete homes máis na miña familia paterna, que comezaba daquela, os Cornell, que eran todos asasinos. Vale, isto dálle a un que pensar. (Risas) Porque o meu pai e os meus tres tíos, na Segunda Guerra Mundial, foron obxectores de conciencia, mansos coma años. Pero de vez en cando aparece unha Lizzie Borden, tres veces por século, e xa volve a tocar. (Risas)
So the moral of the story is: people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. But more likely is this. (Laughter) And we had to take action. Now our kids found out about it. And they all seemed to be OK. But our grandkids are going to be kind of concerned here. So what we've done is I've started to do PET scans of everybody in the family. (Laughter) We started to do PET scans, EEGs and genetic analysis to see where the bad news is. Now the only person -- it turns out one son and one daughter, siblings, didn't get along and their patterns are exactly the same. They have the same brain, and the same EEG. And now they are close as can be. But there's gonna be bad news somewhere. And we don't know where it's going to pop up. So that's my talk. (Laughter)
Entón a ensinanza da historia é: quen ten tellado de vidro non tire pedras ao do veciño. Pero é máis probable que sexa isto: [Non me importa o que a xente saiba sobre min, pero espero que miña nai nunca o descubra] Tivemos que facer algo, agora que os nosos fillos o saben. Parece que todos están ben, pero os nosos netos terán motivos para preocuparse. Así que comecei a facer tomografías de todos os membros da familia. (Risas) Comezamos a facer tomografías, electroencefalogramas e análises xenéticas para ver onde estaba o problema. Ao final resultou que un fillo e unha filla, irmáns, que non se levaban ben, teñen exactamente os mesmos patróns. Teñen o mesmo cerebro e o mesmo electroencefalograma. E agora están máis unidos que nunca. Pero as malas noticias chegarán nalgún momento, e non sabemos onde aparecerán. Aquí remata a miña charla. (Risas)