that alcohol or other substance abusers tend to have specific kinds of behavior when they are children. "There is a higher prevalence of attention deficit disorder, hyperactive tendencies, rule breaking, and poor response to discipline," he said, "than in a comparable group of non-abusers. The particular functions have to do with regulation of attention, movement control, and emotional reactions to people and events. A key feature of antisocial personality disorder, seen during adulthood, and of conduct disorder, its childhood predecessor, is a lack of normal response to aversive events. This is manifested by the inability of such children and adults to respond normally to parental corrections and even to corporal punishment. This lack of response to social censure and physical punishment is quite striking since normal children and adults crave approval and will modify their behavior to obtain it. So, there is an emerging set of ideas that the systems embedded in the brain that respond to emotionally significant events may be lacking in some individuals, evidenced by their inability to respond to external events. Although we might consider such purely psychological processes as empathy, social competence, and rule abiding to be functional and not related to underlying physiological processes, the approach we are taking is that even these sorts of behaviors have an underlying basis in the chemistry and physiology of the brain."

A "startle response" or "startle reflex" is when people jump at the sound of a loud, unexpected noise. The reflex is generally dependent on cues: it can be made stronger by viewing negative photographs, such as traffic accident victims; it can be made weaker by positive photographs, such as happy babies and favorite foods. The part of the brain that causes change in the startle reflex is the amygdala. The amygdala is also involved in forming emotions in response to things an individual sees and hears. For example, humans wh
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15-Apr-2002

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