Emoticeuticals:  Qwelling Anger and Reducing Crime

Anger is hardwired into our brain.  Evolutionarily the anger response has been a successful part of our behaviorial repretoire, enabling us to react swiftly to potentially harmful situations.  In today's growing global society anger is less a successful trait and much more of a danger to us all.

By 2050 our global human society will grow to 10 billion people, 80% of who will live in urbanized settings.  In such a densely populated, highly connected world, anger does not provide the advantage it once did.  In fact, many of those who are quick to anger will find themselves in jail, as they do today.  But chnage is on the way.

Emerging emoticeuticals (emotion-specific pharmaceuticals) will enable each of us to have fine-tune control over our emotional response systems.  Recently, researchers have found that impulsive aggressive behavior can be linked to low levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin in the brain.  This is why tools that help us increase serotonin levels in the brain like Prozac and Zoloft have an anti-aggressive effect when treating violent criminals.  As we continue to understand the finer aspects of neural regulation we can help reduce crime and create a more human society.

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