Hypothesizing Las Vegas and Sutherland Springs Mass Shooters Suffer from Reward Deficiency Syndrome: "Born Bad"

Thomas McLaughlin; Kenneth Blum; Bruce Steinberg; David Siwicki; Joseph Campione; Rajendra D Badgaiyan; Eric R Braverman; Edward J Modestino; Marjorie C Gondré-Lewis; David Baron; Deborah C Mash; John Giordano; Panayotis K Thanos

doi:10.17756/jrdsas.2017-038

Hypothesizing Las Vegas and Sutherland Springs Mass Shooters Suffer from Reward Deficiency Syndrome: "Born Bad"

J Reward Defic Syndr Addict Sci. 2017;3(2):28-31. doi: 10.17756/jrdsas.2017-038. Epub 2017 Dec 30.

Authors

Thomas McLaughlin¹, Kenneth Blum^{2

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4

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8}, Bruce Steinberg⁹, David Siwicki⁴, Joseph Campione¹, Rajendra D Badgaiyan¹⁰, Eric R Braverman⁵, Edward J Modestino⁹, Marjorie C Gondré-Lewis^{11

6}, David Baron⁷, Deborah C Mash¹², John Giordano⁸, Panayotis K Thanos¹³

Affiliations

¹ Center for Psychiatric Medicine, North Andover, MA, USA.
² Department of Psychiatry, University of Florida & McKnight Brain Institute, College of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA.
³ Dominion Diagnostics, LLC, North Kingstown, RI, USA.
⁴ Department of Genetic Addiction Research, Geneus Health LLC, San Antonio, TX, USA.
⁵ Department of Clinical Neurology, Path Foundation, New York, NY, USA.
⁶ National Human Genome Center at Howard University, Washington, DC, USA.
⁷ Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
⁸ Division of Nutrigenomics and therapy, John Giordano's Life Enhancement Aftercare Recovery Center, Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USA.
⁹ Department of Psychology, Curry College, Milton, MA, USA.
¹⁰ Department of Psychiatry, Ichan School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA.
¹¹ Departments of Anatomy & Psychiatry, Howard University School of Medicine, Washington, DC, USA.
¹² Department of Neurology, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, FL, USA.
¹³ Behavioral Neuropharmacology and Neuroimaging Laboratory on Addictions, Research Institute on Addictions, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, USA.

Abstract

The slaughters in Las Vegas and Sutherland Springs demand explanation, in the face of the ineffable. An understanding of the shooters' motives could restore our trust in our mutually cooperative existence. In this short communication we provide post-hoc rationale of both Stephen Paddock (Las Vegas mass shooting) and Devin Kelley (Southerland Springs mass shooting) and hypothesize that these shooters had genetically induced "Reward Deficiency Syndrome" (RDS) and a hypodopaminergia trait/state. In this particular case we are in pursuit of trying to obtain postmortem samples of mass shooters for subsequent epigenetic and neurogenetic analyses. It is our contention that early genetic identification of RDS and its pathological behaviors including hyper - sexuality, violence, a love for guns, even in children, could be a giant step forward in potentially saving lives.

Keywords: ADHD; Gambling; Guns; Hypersexuality; Hypodopaminergia; Mass shootings; Reward Deficiency Syndrome (RDS).

Abstract

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