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Strange as it may seem, low cholesterol could be a significant factor, maybe even the cause, of psychopathy.

I got to thinking about this as a result of reading an article about psychopathy in the current New Yorker, in which we learn about a psychological researcher named Kent Kiehl, who is using MRI scans to study the brains of imprisoned psychopaths.
To date, Kiehl has scanned ninety adult psychopathic brains with the portable scanner. The data, he says, confirm his hypothesis that psychopathy corresponds to a deficit in the paralimbic region. "If you put the pictures of the psychopaths' brains next to the control group, it's obvious," he told me.
The paralimbic region of the brain is responsible for memory formation as well as mediating negative emotional states, such as guilt.

Cholesterol-lowering statins have been implicated in many serious cases of memory loss. It works like this:
Our brain's synapses for memory formation cannot function without sufficient cholesterol and since the LDL/cholesterol molecule is much too large to pass the blood/brain/barrier, nature had devised an alternative means of supplying the brain with necessary cholesterol.

Pfrieger found that the housekeeping cells of the brain, known as glial cells had taken over the role of cholesterol synthesis. It seems likely that the inhibitory effect of statin drugs on cholesterol synthesis extends to our glial cells, and this might account for the many varieties of cognitive dysfunction reported.
Furthermore, low cholesterol and violence - including homicide, suicide, and accidents - are associated, strongly enough that it's unlikely to be a coincidence. Whether the association is merely that, or whether low cholesterol is a causative factor, is another question. But given that cholesterol plays a critical role in neuronal function, including the formation of memories, it appears that a logical link between cholesterol and violence exists. Low cholesterol levels are linked to low serotonin levels in the brain, which has significant associations with violence, suicide, and depression.

Lastly, we have a study carried out in Finland, Total serum cholesterol level, violent criminal offences, suicidal behavior, mortality and the appearance of conduct disorder in Finnish male criminal offenders with antisocial personality disorder. ("Antisocial personality disorder" is a euphemism for psychopathy.)
Associations between low total serum cholesterol (TC) levels and antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), violent and suicidal behavior have been found. We investigated the associations between TC levels, violent and suicidal behavior, age of onset of the conduct disorder (CD) and the age of death among 250 Finnish male criminal offenders with ASPD. The CD had begun before the age of 10 two times more often in non-violent criminal offenders who had lower than median TC levels. The violent criminal offenders having lower than median TC levels were seven times more likely to die before the median age of death in the study material. The violent offenders having lower than median TC levels were eight times more likely to die of unnatural causes. The mean TC level of these male offenders with ASPD was lower than that of the general Finnish male population. Low TC levels are associated with childhood onset type of the CD, and premature and unnatural mortality among male offenders with ASPD. The TC level seems to be a peripheral marker with prognostic value among boys with conduct disorder and antisocial male offenders.
That's about it. Low cholesterol is strongly associated with criminality, as is psychopathy. At least one prominent researcher in the field of psychopathy believes that psychopaths have a defect in the paralimbic system, which is responsible for memory and negative emotions such as guilt. Psychopaths notoriously do not suffer from guilt. Cholesterol-lowering drugs can cause memory loss and aggression. Therefore, low serum cholesterol is implicated in psychopathy. Q.E.D.

Now the question is, just how much is heredity and how much environmental? Is the widespread and longstanding recommendation to cut the fat out of our diets and to ensure a low cholesterol level causing an increase in the number of psychopaths? (If it is, those low-fat diet folks have a lot to answer for, more than they ever would have dreamed.) Does the widespread prescribing of statins increase the fraction of psychopaths in the population? Wouldn't surprise me.