A new study suggests that youths between the ages of 12 and 18 who have committed homicide have significantly different brain structures, compared with other teenage criminals who have not committed homicide, reports [s]Medical News Today[/s]. The research team, including senior study author Dr Kent Kiehl of [b]The Mind Research Network[/b] in Albuquerque, New Mexico, says the findings may lead to new treatments and behavioural therapies to prevent violent crimes. ‘Adolescence is a time of significant biological, cognitive, and neural changes, and is sometimes associated with reckless, irresponsible, delinquent, and at times, violent behaviour. Most adolescents age out of this type of behaviour, but a small percentage of youth continue this anti-sociality into adulthood and are referred to as being on the “life-course persistent” trajectory,’ the study explains.
[link url=http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/277580.php]Full Medical News Today report[/link]
[link url=http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213158214000588]Study abstract[/link]