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.
Sem nevroznanstvenik in profesor na Univerzi v Kaliforniji. V zadnjih 35 letih sem preučeval vedenje na osnovi vsega, od genov do živčnih prenašalcev, dopamina in tega, vse do analize vezja. S tem se ponavadi ukvarjam. Vendar pa sem se, iz nekega razloga, pred kratkim začel ukvarjati z nečim drugim. Začelo se je z vprašanjem enega od sodelavcev, ki me je prosil, naj analiziram kup možganov psihopatskih morilcev.
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.
Na to temo je torej moj tipični govor. Vprašanje pa se glasi: »Kako prideš do psihopatskega morilca?« S »psihopatskim morilcem« mislim te ljudi, te tipe ljudi. Nekateri možgani, ki sem jih preučeval, pripadajo ljudem, ki jih poznate. Ko dobim možgane, ne vem, kaj gledam. Slepa študija, gledal sem tudi normalne ljudi.
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.
Ogledal sem si jih približno 70. Pojavili so se številni podatki. Te stvari si tolmačimo teoretično, na osnovi genetike, poškodb možganov in interakcije z okoljem, pa tudi, kako ta »stroj « sploh deluje. Zanima nas torej, kje točno v možganih, in kateri je najpomembnejši del možganov. Preučevali smo sledeče: medsebojno delovanje genov – tako imenovane epigenetske učinke, poškodbe možganov in okolje ter kako so ti med seboj povezani. Kako pridemo do psihopata in morilca, je odvisno od točnega nastanka poškodbe. To je časovno zelo natančno določeno Tako dobimo različne vrste psihopatov.
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.
Nadaljujmo, kjer smo ostali. Takole, da vam predstavim vzorec. Vzorec je, da so ti ljudje, čisto vsak izmed pregledanih, ki je moril in bil serijski morilec, imeli poškodovano orbitalno skorjo, ki se nahaja tik nad očmi, očesno votlino, in tudi notranji del temporalnega režnja. Obstaja vzorec, ki se je pri vseh ponavljal, ampak je bil pri vsakem tudi malce drugačen. Imeli so tudi druge vrste poškodb možganov. Ključnega pomena je gen, ki vpliva na nasilno vedenje imenovan 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.
Različica tega gena obstaja med običajno populacijo. Nekateri izmed vas ga imate. In povezan je s spolom. Nahaja se na kromosomu X, tako da ga lahko dobite le preko svoje matere. Pravzaprav je to verjetno razlog, da so ponavadi moški psihopatski morilci ali pa so zelo agresivni. Hčerka lahko dobi en kromosom X od očeta in enega od mame, zato se ta gen malo ublaži Kar pa se sina tiče, lahko ta kromosom dobi samo od svoje matere.
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.
Tako se torej prenese z matere na sina. In opraviti ima s preveč serotonina v možganih med razvojem, kar je zanimivo, saj naj bi serotonin proizvajal občutek umirjenosti in sproščenosti. Če pa imate ta gen, se v maternici vaši možgani kopajo v serotoninu in tako postanejo nanj neobčutljivi ter ta na vas nima vpliva.
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.
Lani sem predstavljal ta govor v Izraelu. Res ima nekaj posledic. Teoretično gledano to pomeni, da bi moral biti človek za izražanje tega gena na nasilen način že zgodaj, pred puberteto, vpleten v nekaj resnično travmatičnega – ne malce stresa, šeškanje ali kaj takega, ampak biti priča resničnemu nasilju ali biti vpleten v to nasilje, v realnosti. Tako namreč deluje zrcalni živčni sistem .
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.
Če torej imate ta gen, in ste hkrati priča nasilju v določeni situaciji, je to recept za katastrofo, popolno katastrofo. Na področjih sveta, kjer smo priča nenehnemu nasilju, imamo cele generacije otrok, ki doživljajo vse to nasilje. Če bi bil mlado dekle, obkroženo z nasiljem, staro 14 let, in bi želel najti partnerja bi si poiskal nasilneža, kajne, da me zaščiti. Problem pri tem je, da takšni pari vodijo k zgoščevanju teh »nasilnih« genov. In jih zdaj dobivajo tako fantje kot dekleta. Mislim, da imamo po nekaj generacijah možnost za pravo tempirano bombo.
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.
To je bila torej moja ideja. Nato mi je mati rekla: »Sem slišala da ljudem razlagaš o serijskih morilcih. Govoriš, kot da prihajaš iz normalne družine.« Rekel sem ji: »O čem za vraga govoriš?«. Nato mi je povedala o našem družinskem drevesu. Krivdo je zvalila na očetovo stran družine, saj njena nima ozadja nasilja, medtem ko ga očetova ima.
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.
Rekla je: »Imam dobro in slabo novico. Eden izmed sorodnikov je Ezra Cornell, ustanovitelj Univerze Cornell. Slaba pa je ta, da je tvoja sorodnica tudi Lizzie Borden.«
Now I said, "Okay, so what? We have Lizzie."
Odgovoril sem ji: »Dobro, pač imamo Lizzie v družini, pa kaj potem.«
She goes, "No it gets worse, read this book."
Rekla je: » Še slabše je. Preberi to knjigo.«
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.
»Ubita na nenavaden način«, zgodovinska knjiga. Prvi primer mame, umorjene s strani lastnega sina, ki je bil moj pra-pra-pra-pra-pra-praded. Dobro, to je pač prvi primer matricida. Knjiga je zelo zanimiva, ker govori o sojenju čarovnicam in takratnem načinu razmišljanja.
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)
Ampak to še ni vse. Po očetovi strani je bilo, od takrat naprej, še 7 mož, Cornellov, ki so bili vsi morilci. Okej, mislim, da nas lahko kaj takega spravi v zadrego. (Smeh) Namreč, moj oče in trije moji strici so bili v 2. svetovni vojni podali ugovor vesti, vsi strahopetci. A vsake toliko, recimo trikrat v stoletju, se zgodi Lizzie Borden, in smo si bot. (Smeh)
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)
Torej nauk te zgodbe je: Ljudje v steklenih hišah naj ne mečejo kamnov. Ampak bolj verjetno je tole. (smeh) Morali smo ukrepati. Zdaj so za to izvedeli naši otroci. Vsi so bili videti v redu. Toda naši vnuki bodo tisti, ki jih bo to posebej zadevalo. Kar smo ukrenili je bilo to, da sem začel izvajati PET preiskave vseh v družini. (smeh) Začeli smo s PET in EEG preiskavami ter genetsko analizo, da bi videli, kje se nahaja slaba novica. Zdaj se edina oseba – Izkazalo se je, da se en sin in ena hčerka, sorojenca, nista razumela, čeprav sta njuna vzorca enaka. Imata enake možgane in enak EEG. Zdaj sta si izjemno blizu. Ampak od nekje bo udarila slaba novica, le da ne vemo, od kod. To bi bilo od mene vse. (smeh)