According to a recent report out of UCLA, people can tell you have a prosocial-form of the oxytocin receptor gene after observing you for 20 seconds.
Kogan A, Saslow LR, Impett EA, Oveis C, Keltner D, Rodrigues Saturn S. Thin-slicing study of the oxytocin receptor (OXTR) gene and the evaluation and expression of the prosocial disposition. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2011 Nov 14.
Since this blog’s inception in 2007, we’ve complained about the psychopaths in our lives. Over the years, some have died; others (we feel) have just grown tired or disinterested. Others are alive and kicking and sending us texts about Obama being raised in Kenya. We’ve complained about friends and family who are/were addicted to one thing or another, something that in our view is both the cause of, and solution to, many of their problems, to paraphrase Homer Simpson. We’ve wondered why we seem to draw so many of these people around — to the point where we started this blog because when we looked around it seemed that everyone we knew had some sort of empathy deficit. We couldn’t figure it out — how did so many people become so successful when, stepping back and looking objectively for 30 seconds — they were total sociopaths?
We’ve assumed that they were just highly sneaky, and sort of like those lizard people that you don’t know are really lizards because they are so human-like until they take off the mask and that long forked tongue shoots out for a moth.
We never, not once, considered ourselves at all at fault for anything. If we were targeted, it was just bad luck. No, we’ve been perfect in every way we can think of. Until now (DUM DUM DUM): We’re homozygous GG at SNPrs53576. The oxytocin receptor. We have the prosocial form. [Insert blood curdling scream here].
Last spring when 23 and Me had free DNA day (you knew about that, didn’t you? We received many e mails. Why did so many people want us to get our DNA done we wonder? Because we are so perfect, we assume), all of us à Château Swivelchair spit in the test tubes and bundled them off to the lab. The results have merely confirmed that we are genetically not at fault for anything, at a minimum, and more likely the picture of DNA perfection if you don’t really look too closely. Ok, so we’re fast caffeine metaboliers, and we have to watch out for the warfarin sensitivity. Our mitochondria maternal heritage is via Finland, go figure, some of those great-grandma babushka Swivelchairs were getting chummy in the saunas. There are Y haplogroups related to Niall of the Nine Hostages involved, and that certainly explains a lot (Niall was the Genghis Khan of Ireland, reproductively speaking).
So we looked more closely at the raw data, and ran some SNPS. Yawn yawn.
Until. (DUM DUM DUM): rs53576. GG.
So people can tell after 20 seconds, according to the recent report.
Well that explains it. If people can tell you are prosocial and empathetic after 20 seconds, then that makes us easy prey for psychopaths, no? Is it like a scarlet letter, like a post-it on our back that says “kick me and take my wallet while you’re at it?”
Ok, we overdramatize. And, of course we think we’re perfect — after all that’s what rs53576GG’s do, we’re optimists with high degree of mastery and self esteem.
But seriously, one reason we began this blog is that we couldn’t believe the shenanigans we were seeing from people who were otherwise thought of as pillars of the community, high level C-suites, you name it. (It’s coming out now, the chickens are definitely coming home to roost). But, now we’re really paranoid. Were we targeted? Or was it just the odds? After all, all the reports say that there’s a high percentage of psychopaths at the top of organizations.
We don’t quite know what to make of this, except that we’re going to be much more observant.
It’s a trap!
As a non-pathological AA variant, I would point out that there are ways of showing love and concern other than being one’s best girlfriend.
SB: Elaborate please.
We view being a GG as something as a disability, as it probably fogs the objectivity. Are you good at objectively looking at social situations?
LB, no kidding!
OK, let’s unpack some of this. As 1 of the 3-4 regular devotees thanks 4 ur effort. Funny comments above.
Don’t believe there is even remotely any way to track genes and behavior, may never be it’s so overdetermined, at least in our lifetimes.
Now we spend a LOT of time reading/listening/watching on these topics becuz:
1. It relates to our business
2. It’s just darn fun, for us geeks
The more we read the less we know we know but wot the heck. Here are some prelim ideas, always needing to be falsified:
- Most behavior is driven by a LACK of some brain state/function and to (try and) get to homeostasis, not because of too much of something
- Of course, the behaviors are just symptoms of the underlying brain states
- Broken brain parts usually lead to self/other-harming behaviors, but for the very sensible goal of achieving normal homeostasis. Unfortunately, there is nothing outside of the brain that can sooth a broken brain – much, yet.
- So hyper-seeking seems the main behavior.
- Along with that but probably post hoc and epiphenomenally are feelings of intense hunger/thirst-like = craving.
- But the hyper-seeking behavior gets triggered unconsciously in milliseconds and feelings/thoughts/consciousness/self-talk/other talk comes in seconds. eg — “human “decisions” in a lab setting can be predicted as long as seven seconds before the subjects are aware of having made a ‘choice’”
OK, so let’s look at the hyper-seeking of the psychopath or the person seeking/finding psychopaths or other impaired people/addicts/abusers/etc.
Oh yeah, all this is complicated by the intergenerational context of these mental illnesses. So across the generations:
- The impairments cause distress, self-harming behavior consequences and a whole ecology and behavioral pattern of doing bad stuff to oneself and others to try to externally make up for the chemical imbalances.
- So parents, relatives, sibs with the same brain chemical and structural problems compound the problem creating a vicious cycle.
Back to the hyper-seeking of folks with impaired brains. Who knows but there seems to be a PTSD imprinting on sick people. Haven’t seen research on this but there is the folklore of repetition compulsion, people growing up abused or with addicts and repeatedly seeking/finding abusers and addicts. Apparently a compulsion almost as destructive as a substance addiction.
Bottopmline – the brain deficits are a physical reality and seem to hyper-drive behavior.
Hope? We saw one study where DA receptor deficient mice who “just said no” had improvement (“healing”) of receptors.
Please disagree.
sr – your framework works for me – that is, behavior is a reflection of the brain, and when a brain is “broken” (loaded term), it organically seeks homeostasis, or to return to some degree of health. This is reflected in “seeking” behavior. OK.
On the macro scale, we think that behavior may be adequately correlated with biology. For genetics, there are animal studies with single gene changes resulting in behavior shifts — like the prairie vole who is monogamous, but vasopressin receptor knock outs/mutations result in no monogamy. For organic changes — rail road spike, neurofibrillary tangles, you name it — can result in behavioral changes. So if psychopaths have a wire loose (between the limbic system and the frontal lobes) then they are physically incapable of affective empathy, much as someone with a severed spinal cord is physical incapable.
As far as intergenerational transmission, there are epigenetic studies demonstrating that stressful in utero environment —> dotted line to mental health. The studies are scatter shot now, but we’re going to guess that the genetic instability in the receptors/regulatory regions of genes related to behavior are particularly susceptible to methylation, increase in copy number, etc. and this can be heritable. PTSD-type stress does seem to be heritable through in utero epigenetic modifications. (Here).
Wait, what were we disagreeing with?
Disagreements are always good. We have no interest in being “right” we just want to understand as fully as possible.
It appears the epigenetic stuff is overblown, of course.
The question then becomes, what/why is the psychopath hyper-seeking. Clearly, their brains are pushing them to dominate and seek greater damage and control.
We also have been reading about the in utero damage as well. Certainly, it appears that earlier and earlier diagnosis of the damage is possible — and interventions.
When we speak of inter-generational we are referring to nature and nurture. Nature = genetics. Nurture = living in an environment where caretakers and relatives have the same impairments and behavioral symptoms.
The broken brain metaphor apparently is accurate, not in a moralistic sense, but in that the neuronal circuits actually have mechanical damage.
For example, trauma apparently causes an overspike of energy that permanently “fries” memory neurons — driven by the stress hormones.
We are doing a dopamine deep-dive this w/e here’s part of what lead to our suggestions above. Fruity flies of all things!:
“The researchers used this test to search for flies with an abnormally exaggerated hyperactivity response; genetic studies of these flies revealed that a mutation in a dopamine receptor (a mutation that eliminates the receptor) produced the aberrant behavior. Flies with this dopamine-receptor mutation were hypersensitive to the air puffs, and took much longer to calm down than did “normal” flies without the mutation.
What is surprising about this result, notes Lebestky, “is that previous studies in both flies and vertebrates had suggested that dopamine promotes activity, but our experiments uncovered a function of dopamine in the opposite direction.” Because removing the receptor causes hypersensitivity to the air puffs, these results “suggested that dopamine actively inhibits the hyperactivity response,” Lebestky says.
This observation suggested a possible link to ADHD, a behavioral disorder characterized by impulsivity, hyperactivity, and short attention span. Humans with the disorder often take drugs, such as Ritalin, that increase levels of brain dopamine in order to reduce hyperactivity.”