Do Brain Lesions Make Criminals?

Do Brain Lesions Make Criminals?

Top of Mind with Julie Rose

Hurricane Forecasting, Frankenstein at 200, Saving Baseball

Episode: Hurricane Forecasting, Frankenstein at 200, Saving Baseball

  • Sep 13, 2018 9:00 pm
  • 20:18 mins

Guest: Michael Fox MD, PhD, an Assistant Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School and co-director of the Deep Brain Stimulation Program at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. In 1966, a lone gunman named Charles Whitman perpetrated what’s often considered the first public mass shooting in modern America. He climbed a 300-foot tower at the University of Texas and shot 36 people, killing 14 of them before he was fatally shot by police. An autopsy found a tumor in Whitman’s brain, which some scientists believe may have contributed to his murderous behavior. We know that brain injuries and lesions can change someone’s personality, but can it make someone a violent criminal?

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