Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Stimulating Front Of Brain With Electricity May Cut Aggressive Urges: 'It Sounds Like Pulp Fiction' But It's Not
The Washington Post: Zapping The Brain Appears To Decrease Aggressive Intentions, New Study Says
The possibility of using brain stimulation to help prevent future violence just passed a proof of concept stage, according to new research published Monday in the Journal of Neuroscience. In a double-blind, randomized controlled study, a group of volunteers who received a charge to their dorsolateral prefrontal cortex — the part of the brain that lies directly behind the forehead and is responsible for planning, reasoning and inhibition were — were less likely to say they would consider engaging in aggressive behavior compared to a similar group that received a sham treatment. (Nutt, 7/2)
Stat: Can Zapping Brains Reduce Violence? Controversial Study Sees Potential
The day before, half of them had had the frontmost region of their brains, responsible for such high-level functions as impulse control and moral judgments, electrically stimulated; the other half had not. The people whose prefrontal cortex was stimulated reported roughly half the likelihood of committing a violent act like the ones they watched, scientists at the University of Pennsylvania reported on Monday; they said they found such physical and sexual violence more morally wrong, compared with the control group. (Begley, 7/2)
