(Light edits for readability.)
https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-have-established-a-key-biological-difference-between-psychopaths-and-normal-people/amp/
Seems just as important as amygdala differences. Youve always said you have a marked lack of need for stimulation.
Look up a pic of the striatum and youll see why Im messaging you about this. I dont care enough but I smell something important.
In other words, striatum size probably maps to speed of habituation. I’d guess it’s a trainable thing too, as in “Competitive Fortnite community involvement make striatum bigger”. On top of that, there’s likely an inverse correlation with amygdala size that generalizes outside of psychopath/non-psychopath.
I’ve heard there are two types of people: people who love winning (overactive striatum), and people who hate losing (overactive amygdala). I think I fall into the latter category because when you put me on a basketball court I start caring but I don’t generally feel a desire to be on the court in the first place.
In my head I’m mapping this to the propaganda study about how to motivate extraverts vs. introverts. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0093650220961965
Basically striatum size means “responsiveness to carrot” and amygdala size means “responsiveness to stick”. The former will overlap heavily with desire for power because power just means “ability to get what you want” and people who want things more eventually generalize their desire for what they want into desire for ability to get what they want.
Something I’ve noticed about psychopaths in my personal life is they don’t learn anything from negative experiences, they just keep doing the same things and never make the connection because they don’t anticipate failure.
Psychopath as logical conclusion of “winner effect” : all motivation, no fear?
Yup.
Would make sense as peak r selected adaptation
Though… its also just a good strategy if its baked into a small percent of the populace. There is a real need for psychopaths.
What’s the chemical response associated with loss?
I.e. Extreme loss aversion bias.
Another good example of the distinction: I didn’t care about social competition until it was impressed upon me that I was losing at it whether I wanted to play or not.
chemical response assoc. with loss.
Its normall sold as a ‘lack’ of certain neurotransmitters. As a sad fuck Id have to tell you that it changes massively from ‘things are bad’ to ‘we are truly doomed’. At extreme levels of the sensation of loss… there is an intense need to feel like someone loves you, and a propensity to ‘mourn for the world’ in a genuine way…
Which seems like a FLOOD of either oxcytocin or perhaps Prolactin.
If you were going to put me in the model of ‘striatum vs amygdela’ I would be overactive in both I do believe. Have been less and less striatum and more and more amygdela since age 13 tho (which not incidentally is the peak of actual criminal impulse in men)
I’ve felt the mourning for the world thing, where you’re looking at something nice like a garden and thinking about how in a few years it’ll be wasted away for lack of prosperity (in the best case).
The intense need to feel like someone loves you may explain the tendency to religious experiences under extreme stress.
What I’m getting from quick research is that it’s fight-or-flight/stress chemicals (adrenaline, cortisol, etc.), but I imagine proper mourning followed by a k-selected resilience response (e.g. extreme NE Asian resilience to trauma) includes this tendency to oxytocin dump.
“Research on neuroendocrine mechanisms of grief is still in its early stages regarding grief measures and the use and timing of neuroendocrine assessments. Most of the studies focus on cortisol as outcome, and only limited data exist on other biomarkers such as oxytocin.”
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jne.12887
It… isnt a feeling that maps with anything sensically. There isnt a drug that makes you feel like watching the end of the lord of the rings much less what a family member dying does… much less the experiences further than that. I have never deep dived into sadness… and sadness is distinct from ‘depression’ I do believe. There is always some… possibility left in the feeling of sadness. True depression is mere inevitability, without solace of sacrifice or even the ability to say ‘this happened, and it mattered, at least to me’.
OH. I do have one realization- the feeling of extreme loss is very very close to psychosis. [Edit] While psychotic, the world is an incredibly dangerous place… but one would not dare question that it is not meaningful. And the feelings of ‘feeling for all’ (who have died, who will die, who are wasting their lives) become truly apocalyptic until you begin to ‘split’ ppl once again as a defense mechanism.
Re: proper depression, what that tells me is there must be a chemical that deactivates both ends of the carrot/stick system. Maybe corticotropin? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corticotropin-releasing_hormone
Aeoli Pera 