The transformation of groups of previously nonviolent individuals into repetitive killers of defenseless members of society has been a recurring phenomenon throughout history. This apparent transition of large numbers of seemingly normal, “ordinary” individuals, to perpetrators of extreme atrocities is one of the most striking variants of human behavior, but often appear incomprehensible to victims and bystanders and in retrospect even to the perpetrators themselves and to society in general. This transition is characterized by a set of symptoms and signs for which a common syndrome has been proposed, Syndrome E (Fried, Lancet, 1997). The purpose of such designation is not to medicalize this form of human behavior, but to provide a framework for future discussion and multidisciplinary discourse and for potential insights that might lead to early detection and prevention.

Presentation

The transformation of groups of previously nonviolent individuals into repetitive killers of defenseless members of society has been a recurring phenomenon throughout history. This apparent transition of large numbers of seemingly normal, “ordinary” individuals, to perpetrators of extreme atrocities is one of the most striking variants of human behavior, but often appear incomprehensible to victims and bystanders and in retrospect even to the perpetrators themselves and to society in general.  

This transition is characterized by a set of symptoms and signs for which a common syndrome has been proposed, Syndrome E (Fried, Lancet, 1997). The purpose of such designation is not to medicalize this form of human behavior, but to provide a framework for future discussion and multidisciplinary discourse and for potential insights that might lead to early detection and prevention. 

“Arguably the biggest challenge for interdisciplinary dialogue across the fields that consider brain and behavior…a bold and important attempt to bring interdisciplinary approach to one of the biggest questions facing humanity", Nature, 521:260, 2015 (Editorial on the First Paris Conference on Syndrome E)

Program

Monday, May 9th

Introduction:

09:00 - Gretty Mirdal (Paris IAS), Alain Berthoz (College de France): Introduction and welcome

09:15 - Itzhak Fried (UCLA / Paris IAS): The Brains that Pull the Triggers: Syndrome E, 2016

Empathy and Dehumanization

• 10:15 - Emile Bruneau (MIT): Intergroup empathy and dehumanizations: consequences, neural basis, intervention

10:45 -  Break

• 11:00 - John Decety (Univ. of Chicago): Empathy and Morality
• 11:30 - Alain Berthoz (College de France): The question of multiple identities

12:00 - Discusion

12:45 - Lunch break

Pathology: One of us or one unlike us?

• 14:15 - Asne Seierstad (Norway): Breivik and Beyond: “One of us” behind the Trigger
• 14:45 - David Cohen (Université Pierre & Marie Curie): The road to mass killing: a pathological process?
• 15:15 - Richard Rechtman (EHESS): Questioning the predictive value of syndrome-E

15:45 - Break

• 16:00 - Thomas Boraud (Univ Bordeaux): Syndrome E: pathological process or inheritance of evolution?

16:30 - Discussion

18:00 - Cocktail

Tuesday May 10th 

Valuation and Violence

• 09:00 - Ray Dolan (University College London): Self and Other Valuation
• 09:30 - Matthias Pessiglione (ICM): What's wrong with the valuation system in a terrorist brain?
• 10:00 - Etienne Koechlin (ENS Paris): Rules and Values

10:30 - Discussion

11:15 - Break

Clinical Correlations and Parallels

• 11:45 - Michel Botbol (CHU Brest): What can the clinic of “difficult” adolescents tell us about Syndrome E?
• 12:15 - Lionel Nachache (ICM): Is society subject to “epileptic seizures”? Communication within the brain microcosm and communication within the societal macrocosm

12:45 - Lunch Break

• 14:00 - Trevor Robbins (Oxford): Derangements of Affective Cognition

14:30 - Discussion

Responsibility and Intervention

• 15:15 - Patrick Haggard (UCL / Paris IAS): Why I didn't do it... can other people reduce individual responsibility for action?
• 15:45 - Ken Paller (Northwestern): Changing hearts and minds — A perspective from memory research
• 16:15 - Xabier Agirre Aranburu (International Criminal Court): Obedience, Responsibility, Punishment

16:45 - Discussion

17:30 - Itzhak Fried (UCLA / Paris IAS): Concluding Remarks