4. Classic study for biological psychology: Raine et al.

(1997)
Starter: Define what is meant by aggression:

Aim To investigate whether the brain areas of the prefrontal cortex, angular gyrus,
amygdala, hippocampus, thalamus and corpus callosum were related to violent
behaviour

Prefrontal Function:
Cortex

Amygdala Function:

Hippocampus Function:

Thalamus Function:

Corpus Function:
Callosum

Raine’s participants
 The key participants Raine investigated were murderers who had pleaded the insanity defence (Not
guilty by reason of insanity/NGRI)

The insanity defence, is an affirmative defence by excuse in a criminal case, arguing that the defendant
is not responsible for his or her actions due to a psychiatric disease at the time of the criminal act.

The participants also had not taken any drugs two weeks prior to the experiment. This
was confirmed using a urine test.

This was to ensure that there were no drugs affecting the brain activities of the
participants.

Participants: 41 murderers who used the NGRI Controls: 41 age, ethnicity and sex matched
defense in their trials controls. Participants with schizophrenia were also
matched.

Raine’s procedure
-Each participant would be given a radioactive tracer injection into their bloodstream

-This tracer chemical will make the areas of the brain that are undergoing metabolism “light up” in a
computer scan

-32 minutes after the tracer was injected, the participants had to do a series of tasks on a computer.
(Including identifying targets on a screen and moving a button)

-The purpose of the tasks were to activate the areas in the brain the researchers were interested in

-Immediately after the tasks, the PET scan was taken and took 10 images of the brain at 10mm intervals

PET Scan
A positron emission tomography (PET) scan is an
imaging test that helps reveal how your tissues and
organs are functioning.

A PET scan uses a radioactive drug (tracer) to

show this activity. The activity being measured is
which areas of the brain are using more glucose for
energy/metabolism

^The 10 slices or images that the PET scans took

of the participant’s brains

Raine’s results:
Read the charts below and determine the differences between the brains of the controls and the
murderers.
 Murderers have a higher level of activation in their
right thalamus

Results in quick summary:

Conclusion: Murderers pleading NGRI have different brain activities than people who were not violent
offenders.

It also suggests that no single brain area is related to violent behaviour. Various areas likely interact
together to lead to violent behaviour when linked to certain social, environmental and psychological
factors.

This study does not form a full picture regarding violence/aggression, various other areas of the brain
that were not investigated in this study, but it is a useful preliminary study
 Evaluating the study
Evaluations are strengths or weaknesses of the study

When making evaluations, we go through three steps.

1.Identification 2.Justification 3.Elaboration

Pointing out what Demonstrating how the strength or Explaining how the strength or
the strength or weakness is present in the study weakness makes the study more
weakness is. or less useful in explaining
aggression

The study had high Standardised procedures were used (32
levels of control in minute CPT task was the same), the
the procedure. participants were drug tested and the PET
brain scanning method and regions
measured were consistent across the
participants as well.
This means that the study had
high levels of internal validity, as
confounding variable that could
have affected brain activations
during the tasks were all
controlled for.

Counterpoint:

However, other key elements were not controlled for. 23 of the murderers had suffered from head
injuries. Which could have explained the differences between the groups in regards to the corpus
callosum, furthermore situational factors such as upbringing could also have affected the brains of the
participants.

Researchers cannot be absolutely certain that other factors other than just brain structure could have
lead to the violent behaviour.

The study also The participants were evenly matched on This suggests the researchers
matched their three potentially confounding variables (age, could have made direct and fair
participants sex and mental health disorders). comparisons between the brain
activations of murderers and
controls. Showing the differences
between them

The study has a Which were 41 murderers who pleaded
small subset of insane. Therefore, based on this limited
violent criminals. sample, the study does not provide a
conclusive explanation of criminal or violent
behaviour as a whole.
The findings that certain brain
areas like the right amygdala
being more active might only be
applicable to other highly violent
behaviours like murders, and not
other aggressive behaviours,
such as emotional aggression
towards a spouse
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