BLOG No. FORTY EIGHT

Welcome back to my blog on anxiety and depression. Today I want to continue my blog on correctional medicine and the neurochemistry behind it. I want to discover why any human being would behave in such a way, that their behavior would land them in the correctional facility, where the conditions are simply deplorable. Understand, I have no political charge in the statement, but speak as someone who was seen the ugly bowels of correctional institutions.

When I examined and questioned inmates, I call found one common thread among those that I encountered. There was an incredible amount of impulsivity in almost all of my clientele. Hummm…impulsivity… where have we seen that before? Oh yeah, high D2 dopamine. In addition, many of these inmates had compulsive behaviors, gambling, addiction, and the like. Many of the inmates I tended to also had racing thoughts, as well as substance abuse. Many of them also had anger issues, often landing a punch on a friend, spouse, or cop, before landing behind bars.

So if you have been following along these many blogs, we know we we’re talking about a D2 dopamine chemistry. Rage, impulsivity, narcissistic behaviors, focus and concentration loss—that is the make up of many of the prisoners in this country. But of course, a lot of people have the same D2 issues and don’t land behind bars. What gives? Maybe it’s time for a Joke Break.

My uncle went to prison for 20 years for something he didn’t do. He didn’t wipe the prints off the gun.

Multiple studies on prisoners have been performed, particularly MRI’s and PET scanning. One particular thing kept coming up when these prisoners were scanned in multiple studies. D2? No. Once again, a lot of people have elevated D2 chemistry, but don’t end up in a jail or prison.

But what most adolescent and young offenders had in common was an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex. Interesting…so what does the prefrontal cortex do? Well for starters, it is important for focus and concentration. That may be why a lot of inmates later test positive for attention deficit disorder.

The prefrontal cortex is also known to store knowledge. Perhaps knowledge deficits play a role in people going to jail. And of course, the prefrontal cortex is also known as an important part of the brain to recognize consequences. I mentioned that in a previous blog.

Who would’ve thought that in jumping over that ditch on my bike as a kid, I wouldn’t reach the other side? This fact alone could explain why a lot of human beings end up in jail.

But one other thing sticks out like a sore thumb. Executive function. And I’m not talking about the bathroom habits of the vice president of Google. I am talking about the brain’s ability to stop an impulsive act. For instance, a person needs money to live. He sees that the local beer drive-through keeps their cash in a drawer with easy access. The impulse is to steal the cash.

But for most of us, we don’t act on our impulse. Our executive functioning tells us not to.

But if you have a patient that is impulsive but has little executive function, he or she is going to have trouble controlling that impulse. You can see how that would quickly end up in an arrest. It is my belief that understanding D2 dopamine along with widespread testing and treatment for it, we could cut the prison population to a fraction of the 2.3 million incarcerated men and women in this country.

Well, it is now 5 PM and I am just now pouring my first class of Chardonnay. That may have been why this blog might’ve seem so boring, LOL. Until next time this is Dr. G saying, keep the faith!