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And if it was possible to reduce someone's desire to commit a violent act? Can we take advantage of this technique to reduce crime? Although this scenario may seem like a fantasy, it might not be too far from reality.
In a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience an international team of researchers discovered that by stimulating the prefrontal cortex – a part of the brain that controls complex ideas and behaviors -, could be reduced by more than half the intention of a person to commit a violent act.
The minimally invasive, low-risk technique, known as transcranial stimulation with direct current, has also shown that it increases the perception that acts of physical and badual abuse are morally wrong, and that The effect was detectable even after only one 20-minute session.
"The ability to manipulate such complex aspects and the fundamentals of cognition and behavior outside the body have enormous social, ethical and, perhaps, someday, legal implications." , he said, or in a statement Roy Hamilton, professor of neurology at the Perelman School of Medicine University of Pennsylvania and lead author of the trial.
The researchers said that this new work deals with crime from the point from the perspective of public health, a vision often
For their research, scientists randomly badigned 81 healthy adult participants in two groups
The first group received the brain stimulation technique for 20 minutes. "placebo" group received a weak current for 20 seconds and nothing else, so they did not know whether they had received stimulation or not.In addition, the researcher who realized the experiment did not know to which group belonged each individual.
Electrical stimulation was specifically directed to an area of the prefrontal cortex, known as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Previous research has shown that antisocial individuals often have deficits in this region.
However, it is not clear if these brain deficits cause antisocial behavior, or if the opposite is correct: that antisocial behavior causes changes in the brain of the individual through a known process under the name of neuroplasticity, in which the brain renews its connections in response to its environment.
As soon as participants in both groups received stimulation or electric shock by placebo, the researchers presented them with two hypothetical scenarios: one on physical violence and the other on l '. abuse.
On a scale of 1 to 10, both groups were asked to rate the possibility that they would act as protagonists of the scenarios and how morally wrong they were under the scenarios
. Brain stimulation reduced the intention among those in the group who received it in 47 to 70 percent for physical and badual violence, respectively. Stimulation also increased the perception that violent acts were morally wrong.
It is important to note that there is only one study, but the results are promising as they indicate that a relatively simple biological intervention has the potential To be effective in reducing "Much of the focus on understanding the causes of crime has been in social causation," said Adrian Raine, a Pennsylvania psychologist, in a statement. "It's important, but brain badysis and genetic research have also shown that half of the variance in violence can be attributed to biological factors."
Although the results were promising, much more research is needed before this type of technique can be used in high-risk individuals. And there must be a debate about whether such a treatment would even be ethical.
"This is not the quick fix that will eradicate the aggression and the crime," Raine said. "But can transcranial direct current stimulation be offered as an intervention technique for those who commit crimes for the first time in order to reduce their possibility of committing an act of violence again?"
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