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(CNN) – Someone's desire to commit a physical or sexually violent act can be stopped by rapid physical intervention in the brain, according to a new study.
It's early in the work, but scientists from the University of Pennsylvania and Nanyang Tech University think they've invented it with a little experiment involving stimulating the Prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain involved in complex thinking and decision. -manufacturing. The results were published in the journal JNeurosci this week
Research has shown that some people who have been violent have deficits in the prefrontal cortex. The researchers therefore designed an experiment on what would happen if this part of the brain was stimulated.
Scientists recruited 81 "healthy" adults in Philadelphia. Half of the group underwent a minimally invasive technique called transcranial direct current stimulation, which sent a painless electrical current into the prefrontal cortex for 20 minutes. The placebo group, those who did not have physical stimulation, had a weak current for 30 seconds. Neither group knew who was getting the real stimulation.
Then the groups had two hypothetical scenarios
A story involved a physical assault. A man goes to an appointment with a woman that he sees for two years. When he goes to the bathroom, one of his friends sits at the table and chats with the girlfriend. When the boyfriend comes back, he interrupts his friend by asking for his number. The words are exchanged, and the boyfriend ends up hitting the other man on the head with a bottle of beer.
The second scenario involves a couple at a first date. They watch a movie in the apartment of the woman. They begin to kiss during the movie, but as things get more intimate, the woman tells the man to stop. Despite repeated protests, the man sexually assaulted her.
Study participants then had to score on a scale of 0 to 10 (0 being a chance and 10 being 100% chance) if they would act as violent protagonists. For those who had brain stimulation, the likelihood that they would engage in physical or sexual aggression under these circumstances was 47% and 70%, respectively, lower than that of those who had not the stimulation.
The authors believe that the results "
" The understanding of the causes of crime has focused on social causality. This is important, but research on brain imaging and genetics has also shown that half of the variance of violence can be attributed to biological factors, "said Adrian Raine, a psychologist and professor at Penn Integrates Knowledge Penn Medicine "We are trying to find benign biological interventions that society will accept, and direct transcranial stimulation is a minimal risk. This is not a frontal lobotomy. In fact, we say the opposite, that the front part of the brain needs to be better connected to the rest of the brain. "
This experience does not mean that if scientists used this technique, any violence would go away soon.Many more research is needed, and the experience has only involved people" in good health According to the study, it remains to be seen whether this could work on those who are subject to violence or who have shown violent tendencies in the past.
It is not known whether people's intentions will stay the same over time, but experience suggests that this physical stimulation in the brain can have a positive impact on one's thoughts.
"The challenge is, very angry, aggressive people often have the feeling to have the right to be violent, "said Dr. Prudence Gourguechon, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst with a clinical practice in Chicago.It is not affiliated with the study but has worked with patients who fight against violence
To use this technique, one would have to obtain the consent of a person, said Gourguechon. "And you could have another motivation problem here, because you should find people who admit that they have a problem of violence first."
She said that the experience is interesting, but that she should be tested are repeatedly violent or prone to violent act, rather than healthy subjects, to see if that changes their violent intentions.
"The most important point of this study may be how it shows the real possibilities of more direct brain interventions," said Dr. Jesse Viner, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Medical Officer of Yellowbrick, a practice of psychology in Evanston, Illinois, which uses a combination of techniques including brain-targeting technologies, called neuromodulation interventions. Its patient population includes youth who have substance abuse, trauma and other mental health issues. "The science is evolving from treatments such as drugs that affect all parts of the body, to treatments that are more direct and focused brain interventions like this one that are much more promising."
Experience has shown that there was a difference In the intention that had people to commit acts of violence, there was not really any difference in the way the two groups acted. Both groups were allowed to "release their negative energy" on a simulated voodoo doll intended to represent the friend or date in the scenario. When it came to pushing pins into the doll, there was no difference between the groups' behavior.
"This is not the magic bullet that will eliminate aggression and crime," Raine said. But he thinks it might be a kind of intervention that primary offenders might want to try to reduce the chances of committing further violence.
Dr. Roy Hamilton, co-author of the study, believes that the experiment demonstrates the possibility of this kind of violence. "The ability to manipulate such complex and fundamental aspects of cognition and behavior from the outside of the body has enormous legal, social and ethical implications," Hamilton, associate professor of neurology at the Perelman School of Medicine. Penn's medicine, says in the statement. "Perhaps, the secret to having less violence in your heart is to have a properly stimulated mind."
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