Brain injuries during young age may be the main case for adult to commit crimes

[hellheaven1987]

Watch out, may be your anti-social attitude is caused by brain damage too.

Young people who sustain brain injuries are more likely to commit crimes and end up in prison, research suggests.

The University of Exeter study says such injuries can lead maturing brains to "misfire", affecting judgement and the ability to control impulses.

It calls for greater monitoring and treatment to prevent later problems.

The findings echo a separate report by the Children's Commissioner for England on the impact of injuries on maturing brains and the social consequences.

In the report, Repairing Shattered Lives, Professor Huw Williams from the University of Exeter's Centre for Clinical Neuropsychology Research, describes traumatic brain injury as a "silent epidemic".

It is said to occur most frequently among children and young people who have fallen over or been playing sport, as well as those involved in fights or road accidents.

The consequences can include loss of memory, with the report citing international research which indicates the level of brain injuries among offenders is much higher than in the general population.

A survey of 200 adult male prisoners in Britain found 60% claimed to have suffered a head injury, it notes.

The report acknowledges there may be underlying risk factors for brain injury and offending behaviour but says improving treatment and introducing screening for young offenders would deliver significant benefits in terms of reducing crime and saving public money.

Prof Williams said: "The young brain, being a work in progress, is prone to 'risk taking' and so is more vulnerable to getting injured in the first place, and to suffer subtle to more severe problems in attention, concentration and managing one's mood and behaviour.

"It is rare that brain injury is considered by criminal justice professionals when assessing the rehabilitative needs of an offender...

"Brain injury has been shown to be a condition that may increase the risk of offending, and it is also a strong 'marker' for other key factors that indicate risk for offending."

Source

Interesting, but how can we classify those... criminals suffer brain-damage before? Should we consider them as mental instability hence put them into mental hospitals permanently? Or may be we should set up a level to determine which level is considered mental instability while others are not? I mean, if there are 60% of criminals claim they commit crimes because they have suffered from brain injuries, that is quite a serious issue here.

[Sphere]

Interesting, but how can we classify those... criminals suffer brain-damage before?

Lets just call them the Boston Bruins and move on.

[Vanoi]

Don't young brains heal brain damage they get though?

[Visna]

Don't young brains heal brain damage they get though?

It depends on the type of injury, but generally no. Nervous tissue doesn't repair, that's why a broken back is bad news for your mobility. However, what the brain can do is to "re-route" so to speak, form new connections, find new paths around the damaged area.

[Vanoi]

It depends on the type of injury, but generally no. Nervous tissue doesn't repair, that's why a broken back is bad news for your mobility. However, what the brain can do is to "re-route" so to speak, form new connections, find new paths around the damaged area.

Thats what i basically mean. neuro plasticity. Can't the brain just re-wire itself to fix this problem?

[hellheaven1987]

Thats what i basically mean. neuro plasticity. Can't the brain just re-wire itself to fix this problem?

Possible, but it is not an easy task; furthermore, the scared tissues and dried blood left in brain may also affect the function of brain - this is not just for children, but also affect adults.

[Vanoi]

Possible, but it is not an easy task; furthermore, the scared tissues and dried blood left in brain may also affect the function of brain - this is not just for children, but also affect adults.

Well if they go to a doctor and such that won't be much of a problem. Brain plasticity is an amazing thing, but it all depends on your age. Its much easier to do re-wiring in a 6 month old baby's brain than a 10 year old's brain.

[Elfdude]

Don't young brains heal brain damage they get though?

It depends largely on the location of the injury. Generally speaking the amount of the brain that can be healed is inversely related to the age and development of it. Yes and no essentially.

To explain this it's very helpful to imagine the brain as a map of cities across the world. The very fundamental bits are like the big cities, central locations with connections across the entire world (brain) even moderate damage to any central nodes will result in massive issues and they are highly unlikely to ever heal. If a flu epidemic started in New York, there's going to be massively more fallout than if it starts in Hopewell Oregon, pop 315. The same is true with your brain. If we damage the big locations and central nodes even when you're very young it's highly unlikely for them to heal.

The exception for this appears because the brain is not finished developing it's entire size after birth. This is a time where major brain defects can be detected and in some cases of epilepsy and other diseases whole nodes may be disconnected from the grid. These nodes are more or less like empty cities, the buildings are ready but there's nothing important in them. Thus we can cut these connections if for example one of these nodes is producing triggers for seizures.

There's thousands of nodes within the brains, areas that have more connections coming in relatively to other areas and each of these nodes is extremely important to future development. However as our metaphor would imply you can go the other direction too, as an adult even if the peripheral of our brain is damaged in most cases we can reroute or relearn the lost functions. If we lose a farm to a fire it's of far less global importance than New York and we can easily replace it. If we lost a major city our only option would be to start anew which (in most cases) the brain cannot do.

There's also several critical periods of development that occur for children where the brain undergoes massive predictable reorganization. Imagine it sort of like a feudal or really any chain of command system with higher neurons overseeing the activities of lower neurons. Each stage of development is like adding a new rank to your neural COC with Overseers appearing first, Middle Managers appearing second, Team leads appearing third and Grunts appearing last. Losing the bottom rung of your brain's organizations (usually the cells with the least connections in and out) is certainly of major issue but you can recover from it. Think of physical therapy where people have to relearn how to walk or talk but eventually restore their abilities as they were as soon as their muscle memory is restored through relearning the tasks. However if you lose connection which silences other muscles at the same time you unfortunately will probably never learn to coordinate your muscles again, if you've lost something that took you most of your early years to learn and built all of your future knowledge on top of it you probably can't get it back.

Now there is some pretty exciting exceptions and abilities we've learned. For example typically it is assumed depth perception can't be learned past early childhood but scientists have recently demonstrated that even individuals as old as sixty can still learn to see depth it just requires a different way of conceptualizing it now that the rest of the brain is mature (whereas the trial and error method of childhood doesn't do much) so there may be ways to restore central nodes in the future but the way to do this isn't very well understood.

The other option of course is introducing new brain cells to the brain, unfortunately new brain cells don't necessarily cause any benefit to the highly ordered brain. In fact by creating new connections new neurons can inhibit existing ones. We do actually get thousands of new neurons each year but in comparison to what we already have they're fairly insignificant. Some central node neurons have been with you since the blob of cells you were as an egg folded to form a spine. Others are fairly new.

The important realization however is that the brain is organized in a series of heuristics. Thus it's unlikely that in most cases a fundamental branch or trunk on the 'tree of knowledge' will be repaired if destroyed.

It depends on the type of injury, but generally no. Nervous tissue doesn't repair, that's why a broken back is bad news for your mobility. However, what the brain can do is to "re-route" so to speak, form new connections, find new paths around the damaged area.

Most brain injuries do heal. Neurons are surprisingly hearty and get the best care when they get damaged. For example relatively few strokes result in massive brain issues because often the veins which feed the central nodes are also the ones hardest to clot off. Though some brain death is common in stroke victims the majority can recover the lost functions. The problem is that when you're losing millions neurons to lack of oxygen because you just bruised your brain bursting all of the capillaries in it and preventing critical influx of nutrients to parts of your brain.

Possible, but it is not an easy task; furthermore, the scared tissues and dried blood left in brain may also affect the function of brain - this is not just for children, but also affect adults.

Dried blood in the brain O_o? You mean like a stroke? No there are no left over scabs or blood in your brain, the blood starts being digested by your white blood cells almost immediately upon the capillary/vein/artery being broken. You may have experienced a bruise before. The blood does not simply sit in your tissue, it's quickly digested by white blood cells causing the pretty colors we know. Red bruises are fresh, purple bruises are losing oxygen, green/yellow is the color of the digested blood cells before the white blood cells re-enter the circulation after cleaning the tissue. Scar tissue definitely, it's more like a section of the grid that got turned off or cut from the rest than say the scar on your skin.

So maybe the problem is ''risk-averse and risk-prone populations''... Where does ''risk-aversiveness'' and ''risk-proneness'' come from?

This is derived statistically. Risk factors are factors which commonly correlate to the problem. They do not cause the problem but they increase the end probability that it will occur. Risk Aversion is the tendency to attempt to reduce risk. For example I might try and reduce my risk of lung cancer by quitting smoking. This does not mean smoking causes cancer however. Relatively few things biologically speaking cut and dry cause symptoms, usually it's a systemic overload in some form caused by too many risk factors building up.

This is quite important to note because the part of your brain which decides everything is also one of the most vulnerable to concussive forces. It's the part of your brain that lays right over the top of your eyebrows which performs conscious decisions and awareness. In a split second the conscious part of your brain clears up confusion encountered by the unconscious part of your brain. For example if you've ever gone to cook something and forgotten an ingredient you may have noticed you becoming extremely aware of your mistake, this was because your unconscious said, "HEY MY ROUTINE ISN'T WORKING WHAT'S WRONG!?" and your conscious replied with, "YOU FORGOT BAKING SODA DUMMY"

Now if it's this portion of your brain which is typically damaged in head injuries you can see the problem. We learned how important the brain was to decision making waaay back in the 1800's when a rail road worker named Phineas Gage accidentally had his tamping rod blown through his head and miraculously survived. Once it was removed the man was no longer able to control any of his impulses, a formerly godly man he grew cynical and selfish, a family man he spurned his loves, he became a lazy bum who had no friends in the world when he died of complications due to an infection, because despite not being able to do anything really about his behavior he still possessed the memories which made that certain lifestyle important to him. So it's a rather fundamental concept to science and is one of the major reasons doctors take any and all head injuries so seriously. You mess with the base programming and suddenly the individual doesn't act so predictably even when what they should choose should be clear they simply can't identify it.

"If" they go to doctor; that being said, are you going to see doctor everytime when your head got hit?

I would recommend you get your head checked any time you take more than a 30 G hit to the head. I say this because while the average falls around about 80-90 G's for a concussion you can have hits as little as 40 G's which cause concussions as well. It has a lot of factors that go into it. Hydration is a major one, and sports athletes are particularly prone to concussions for this reason. Hydration is so key here that you can actually keep an eye on your baby's hydration by looking at their 'soft spot'. A dimple represents too little water, whereas a smooth top represents satisfactory hydration. Again I haven't the slightest idea how to conceptualize this. Any hit that leaves you stunned even slightly is a good rule of thumb.

That is true, but the question is, are you going to bring your kids to doctors everytime when his/her head got hit?

As a parent this is remarkably easier to do than you think. In reality most parents do when they think their kids get hit. The issue usually is parents of child-'athletes' who haven't the slightest idea about medicine and are living vicariously through their child with a pipe dream of turning their child into the allstar they never were. Other issues is when children don't want to say (fights with siblings, bullying etc) or when the child recovers on his own and doesn't think to tell anyone.

More than 60% of prisoners in your prison have this condition is pretty serious.

This seems quite likely to be much much much higher than 60%. When you've got sports, fighting, and risky behavior almost universally concussion rates go up drastically. I doubt most prisoners could accurately diagnose or recall most of the instances of head trauma they went through simply because it's likely to be very common.

Are you really sure they didn't get injured due to being ''exposed'' to riskier and unsafer situations in the first place? Like the ones individuals located in lower Socioeconomic Stratas tend to face everyday?

That's certainly part of it, but the problem is it's a self perpetuating cycle. The concussion in a forward facing hit (to the front of the head) will almost always hit the frontal lobe the hardest and thus your ability to make decisions in turn influencing the ability to decide on behavior which is less than risky.

Wow, with such an thorough investigation it’s amazing that anyone would be skeptical about its conclusions.

I agree a poor study but the idea behind it is sound.

Really, we already know that brain injuries alter behavior and can lead to criminal behavior depending on which part of the brain is damaged, but my bet is that criminality in general is largely the result of an interplay between genetics and environment (like everything else).

Right but this is just identification of one of those environmental factors...? I'm confused how we can dismiss concussions and simultaneously include them as environmental.

[sumskilz]

Right but this is just identification of one of those environmental factors...? I'm confused how we can dismiss concussions and simultaneously include them as environmental.

It's just not really newsworthy, arguably the awareness of this issue dates back to the Nineteenth Century. The case of Phineas Gage comes to mind.

[Elfdude]

It's just not really newsworthy, arguably the awareness of this issue dates back to the Nineteenth Century. The case of Phineas Gage comes to mind.

Yes, that's the man who I was referring to in my post. As far as newsworthy, meh, that's just personal flavor. I appreciate you prefer your flavor otherwise but that's not a universal thing.

[sumskilz]

Yes, that's the man who I was referring to in my post.

Oh yeah, I see. I had only previously read your response to me.

[Claudius Gothicus]

That's certainly part of it, but the problem is it's a self perpetuating cycle. The concussion in a forward facing hit (to the front of the head) will almost always hit the frontal lobe the hardest and thus your ability to make decisions in turn influencing the ability to decide on behavior which is less than risky.

But Socioeconomic Status happens before suffering brain damage due to accidental causes(unless we can prove there's a general tendency toward brain damage in poor people).

Individuals are born into families with different tiers of Socioeconomic Status, the risks of suffering accidents rise due to riskier situations which(if we infer that these tend to happen during early or mid stages of development) are previous to the individuals and their choices. Being born in an unsafe enviroment is something the individuals can't change while their levels of agency(individual-action) are low, like during infancy or puberty.

[Elfdude]

But Socioeconomic Status happens before suffering brain damage due to accidental causes(unless we can prove there's a general tendency toward brain damage in poor people).

Again it's a self perpetuating cycle. Lower socioeconomic status = increased likelihood of suffering traumatic brain injury as a child = higher than likely chance of damage to the frontal lobe = less chance to make decisions which are quality enough to get you out of your socioeconomic status. Poorer decision making as a child can lead to falling into a bad crowd, can lead to very risky and criminal behavior as a teenager (where your decision lobe is already being reordered and essentially won't be finished till 21-22) who are already prone to risky and independent behavior. This is compounded if the individuals don't get that final burst of stimulation they need to create a good system for deciding what to do, i.e. individuals locked in jail from 17-22 tend to have massive loss in brain connectivity in their frontal lobe due to lack of stimulation.

For example the best way scientists have come up with to get poor people out of poverty is to focus on children between the ages of 0-5 and essentially play mind games with them to provide the stimulation many of them lack during early childhood (another compounding factor, most are from single parents who can't spend enough time with their children durring critical development) this increased their acting IQ at a far faster rate than their peers and all of the children started preschool with an intelligence advantage over their peers in everything from spatial reasoning to social intelligence. They were able to keep their bonuses through highschool and every study child went on to go to college and leave their respective ghettos.

The way to stop the self perpetuating cycle is to intervene. More intelligent people are less likely to value competitive sports which are inherently dangerous and cause most childhood brain injuries, further having a better developed frontal lobe actively insulates them from damage to the frontal lobe because though it can still be damaged the damage tends to stop development not destroy the lobe (which would be far more severe).

Individuals are born into families with different tiers of Socioeconomic Status, the risks of suffering accidents rise due to riskier situations which(if we infer that these tend to happen during early or mid stages of development) are previous to the individuals and their choices. Being born in an unsafe enviroment is something the individuals can't change while their levels of agency(individual-action) are low, like during infancy or puberty.

Seems accurate, not sure how this impacts what I said however (this being what I said myself).

[Claudius Gothicus]

For example the best way scientists have come up with to get poor people out of poverty is to focus on children between the ages of 0-5 and essentially play mind games with them to provide the stimulation many of them lack during early childhood (another compounding factor, most are from single parents who can't spend enough time with their children durring critical development) this increased their acting IQ at a far faster rate than their peers and all of the children started preschool with an intelligence advantage over their peers in everything from spatial reasoning to social intelligence. They were able to keep their bonuses through highschool and every study child went on to go to college and leave their respective ghettos.

The way to stop the self perpetuating cycle is to intervene. More intelligent people are less likely to value competitive sports which are inherently dangerous and cause most childhood brain injuries, further having a better developed frontal lobe actively insulates them from damage to the frontal lobe because though it can still be damaged the damage tends to stop development not destroy the lobe (which would be far more severe).

In other words: Concerted Cultivation

I agree, but little can be done on a simple interactive level... large amounts of resources have to be mobilized on an Institutional Level to tackle or at least reduce the unequal appropiation of opportunities that perpetuate these cycles of:

''Poverty-Risk taking-Damaged Cognitive Development-Reduced Opportunities''

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

The way to stop the self perpetuating cycle is to intervene. More intelligent people are less likely to value competitive sports which are inherently dangerous and cause most childhood brain injuries, further having a better developed frontal lobe actively insulates them from damage to the frontal lobe because though it can still be damaged the damage tends to stop development not destroy the lobe (which would be far more severe).

Umm... I'm by definition a Genius and I love Shooting and Archery, which can be far more dangerous than football or something like that if not done properly.

Also, that's not true about poverty, just because your poor doesn't mean your gonna be stupid.

A child that is poor and does not have a willingness to learn will fail; but if that child has a willingness to learn he will succeed. That applies to all classes, poor, middle, or rich.

I know plenty of rich kids who are dumber than a bag of rocks. I went into preschool waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay ahead of those kids and had no stimulation of that kind.

And we lived in a trailer park (literally).

[Claudius Gothicus]

''Main Case for criminality''?

[Vanoi]

''Main Case for criminality''?

I can tell you don't exactly accept this reasoning. How much influence could society have on criminal behavior?

[Claudius Gothicus]

I can tell you don't exactly accept this reasoning. How much influence could society have on criminal behavior?

I have this feeling the tendencies to medicalization of crime do not help our efforts to curve it. But I'm not taking our problems to society, that would take a certain effort(to quote and explain articles pointing at sociodemographic/socioeconomic reasons behind crime)... and I'm not willing to make it.

Prof Williams said: "The young brain, being a work in progress, is prone to 'risk taking' and so is more vulnerable to getting injured in the first place, and to suffer subtle to more severe problems in attention, concentration and managing one's mood and behaviour.

So maybe the problem is ''risk-averse and risk-prone populations''... Where does ''risk-aversiveness'' and ''risk-proneness'' come from?

[AqD]

-- delete --

[sumskilz]

There is really nothing to this article.

A survey of 200 adult male prisoners in Britain found 60% claimed to have suffered a head injury

Wow, with such an thorough investigation it’s amazing that anyone would be skeptical about its conclusions.

Really, we already know that brain injuries alter behavior and can lead to criminal behavior depending on which part of the brain is damaged, but my bet is that criminality in general is largely the result of an interplay between genetics and environment (like everything else).