Share of Cost, Reaction to violent media depends on each individual’s brain circuitry
With the longstanding debate over whether violent movies cause real world violence as a backstop, a study published in PLOS One found that each person’s reaction to violent images depends on that individual’s brain circuitry, and on how aggressive they were to begin with.
The study, which was led by researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and the NIH Intramural Program, featured brain scans which revealed that both watching and not watching violent images caused different brain activity in people with different aggression levels. The findings may have implications for intervention programs that seek to reduce aggressive behavior starting in childhood.