Empathy And Violence Have Similar Circuits In The Brain

During my various stumps around the country giving talks to various branches of Cafe Scientifique I often refer to the inordinate evolution of parts of the brain in humans that we associate with social intelligence and I'm often asked, at question time, why, if we have evolved greater propensities than apes for social intelligence, tolerance, culture etc. etc. are we also capable of our own extremes of violence? Part of the answer might come from this Physorg article which suggests that key components of the social brain, involved in empathy - like the prefrontal and temporal cortices, the amygdala, insula and cingulate cortex - overlap in a surprising way to those circuits that regulate violence and aggression. Whomever translated the article from the original Spanish did a poor job - resulting in some amusing mistakes, and the researchers' own conclusions, that this may help train brains to be more empathic, are just plain silly. Nevertheless, the piece is probably worth noting.