Crouching Lurker, Hidden Coward says:
A new study that found an important reward centre in the brain responds similarly to avoiding punishment or gaining a prize.
In other words, knowingly committing an offence, and getting away with it may be as good as winning a prize for some people. If you have a certain kind of brain damage — specifically to the medial orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) — you may have a special propensity to want to do that.
This could explain the propensity of certain public figures, politicians, and pundits (particularly right-wing, but not always) to behave as sociopaths who seem to believe that the rules don't apply to them.
Bottom line: these very public bad boys and bad girls may be brain damaged. But you knew that already, didn't you?
