History shows us the same grim phenomenon over and over: under extreme circumstances, apparently ordinary citizens turn into merciless torturers and systematic executioners of defenseless victims. War crimes and genocides may be orchestrated by dictators and terrorist leaders,but they are carried out by individuals who otherwise show empathy, sound moral judgment, and aversion to violence.
How does this happen? Is the pull of a murderous regime strong enough to make harmless men become amoral monsters, or is there some underlying psychological or physiological trait that predisposes certain people toward this transition? Can the pathological switch between sensitive human and desensitized killer be isolated, redicted, and prevented? Can it be overridden by compassion and altruism? Is violent aggression addictive? What implications does this have for the way we try and punish perpetrators of such crimes?
These are among the questions taken up in a series of conferences on mass violence held from 2015 to 2017 at the Paris Institute of Advanced Studies. In this volume, neuroscientists, sociologists, historians, and legal scholars share research and insights on the roots of radicalization, in-group loyalty, how we learn to follow rules, and many other themes. The result is a troubling but distinctly illuminating glimpse of human nature, and a model of how interdisciplinary dialogue can shed light into its darkest corners.

With contributions from Xabier Agirre Aranburu; Scott Atran; Alain Berthoz and Bérangère Thirioux; Thomas Boraud; Michel Botbol; Emile Bruneau;Christopher R. Browning; David Cohen and Nicolas Campelo;Jean-Paul Costa; Susan T. Fiske; Itzhak Fried; Julie Grèzes and Jorge L.Armony; Patrick Haggard; Etienne Koechlin; Heather D. Lucas, Daniel Sanchez, Jessica D. Creery, Xiaoqing Hu, and Ken A. Paller; Gretty M. Mirdal;Mathias Pessiglione; Richard Rechtman; Trevor W. Robbins; Edmund T. Rolls; Françoise Sironi; James K. Stewart; and Jean-Pol Tassin. 

1. Cover Page
2. Title Page
3. Copyright Page
4. INTRODUCTION
   1. Syndrome E: Cognitive Fracture in Our Midst
      1. The kill switch: ordinary individuals become mass murderers
      2. Symptoms and signs
      3. Risk factors
      4. Differential diagnosis
      5. Cognitive fracture: the brains that pull the triggers
      6. Psychiatric considerations
      7. Key neurobehavioral constructs
      8. Neuropharmacology of Syndrome E
      9. Prevention and treatment
      10. Challenges
   2. Syndrome E
      1. Symptoms and signs
      2. Risk factors
      3. Differential diagnosis
      4. Pathophysiology
      5. Testing the hypothesis
      6. Prevention
5. PART I - Mad or Bad?
   1. The Elusive Holocaust Perpetrator
   2. Is Syndrome E a Mental Disorder?
      1. Defining Syndrome E
      2. Is Syndrome E a mental disorder?
      3. Do perpetrators manifest signs of mental disorder prior to acts of extreme mass violence?
      4. Lone mass killers
      5. Collective mass killers
      6. The social precursors of extreme violence
      7. Personality traits that constitute a susceptibility to Syndrome E
      8. From radicalization and fanaticism to Syndrome E
      9. Interdisciplinarity or biological determinism?
      10. Concluding remarks
   3. Who Will Become a Mass Murderer? The Predictive Value of Syndrome E
      1. From monsters to ordinary men
      2. When ordinary men are not so ordinary
      3. The philosophical and psychological assumption of the abnormality of mass killing
      4. Conclusion
   4. Devoted Actors and the Will to Die and Kill
      1. Introduction: devoted actors versus rational actors
      2. Illustrating field-based research: the “will to fight” on the ISIS frontline and elsewhere
      3. Further brain and behavior studies
      4. Conclusions
   5. Syndrome E: Pathological Process or Inheritance by Evolution?
      1. Introduction: From Hector to Conan, a journey through the history of mass murder
      2. A very human feature
      3. The neural substrate of belief and territory
      4. The neurobiology of ethical and moral judgment
      5. A competitive mechanism
      6. Absence of remorse
      7. Syndrome E as a social disorder
      8. Can we treat Syndrome E?
      9. Syndrome E perpetrators: guilty or victim?
6. PART II - When Brains Decide
   1. How Ordinary People Become Violent: Dehumanizing Out-Groups
      1. Universal distinctions: stereotype content model
      2. The brains that pull the triggers
      3. Antidotes
      4. How does stereotype content relate to violence?
   2. Empathy, Sympathy, Empathy Breakdown, and Dehumanization: New Phenomenological and Neurobiological Hypotheses to Better Understand Variable- and Context-Dependent Mental States in Syndrome E
      1. Empathy and the question of morality
      2. Phenomenology and neurobiology of empathy and sympathy
      3. The Threefold Intersubjective Clinical Model of Syndrome E
   3. Volition, Valence, and Violence: Experimental Studies of Sense of Agency and Responsibility with Relevance to Syndrome E
      1. Introduction: the nature of volition
      2. Sense of agency for positive and negative action outcomes
      3. Effects of emotional state on agency and responsibility
      4. Effects of free choice and coercion on sense of agency and responsibility
      5. Conclusions
   4. Group Affiliation and the Neural Processing of Emotional Expressions
      1. Group affiliation
      2. Intergroup bias in emotion processing
      3. Neural correlates of social categorization processes
      4. Neural time course and correlates of group-dependent perceptual bias
      5. Group bias in emotional perception and Syndrome E
   5. When Brains Decide: Conflicts of Reason and Emotion
      1. Emotional states
      2. An anatomical and functional framework for understanding the neural basis of emotion
      3. An emotional and a separate reasoning system for identifying goals for action
      4. Effects of damage to and dysfunction of the human orbitofrontal cortex
      5. A pathology of emotions, focusing on violent behavior
      6. Conflict between the reasoning and emotional systems
      7. Possible remedies
   6. Neural and Cognitive Foundations of Rule Compliance in Humans
      1. The habits system: stimulus-based decision-making
      2. The goals system: outcome-based decision-making
      3. The rules system: state-based decision-making
      4. Interactions between the habits, goals, and rules systems
      5. From rules to rule compliance
      6. From rule compliance to Syndrome E
      7. Concluding remarks
   7. The Brain Valuation System That Pulls the Trigger: What's Wrong?
      1. How the brain valuation system should work
      2. So what's wrong? How the brain valuation system could go mad
   8. The Neuropsychopharmacology of Syndrome E
      1. Introduction
      2. Pseudopsychopathic syndrome and the prefrontal cortex
      3. Psychopharmacology and Syndrome E
      4. Serotonin: impulsivity, compulsivity, decision-making, and moral behavior
      5. Possible relationship between drug abuse and Syndrome E
      6. Other possible pharmacological links to Syndrome E
      7. Conclusion
   9. When Violence Becomes Rewarding: Analogies between Syndrome E and Drugs of Abuse
      1. A subgroup of neurons
      2. Dopamine and reward circuitry
      3. Reward circuitry in humans and the role of the amygdala
      4. In animals, aggression is as rewarding as drugs of abuse
      5. Are aggression and/or violence rewarding to humans?
      6. Control of amygdalar activation
      7. Can violence be addictive?
7. PART III - Prevention and Treatment
   1. The Marionette's Threads: How the Tugs of Empathy and Dehumanization Can Lead to Intergroup Conflict
      1. Empathy
      2. Dehumanization
      3. Collective blame
   2. The Road to Mass Killing and Deradicalization Projects
      1. Today's adolescence
      2. Risk factors for radicalization among European youths
      3. Findings from the first prospective sample of French individuals who aimed to join ISIS between 2014 and 2016
      4. Recommendations to prevent radicalization
   3. Clinical Approach to Difficult Adolescents: Implications for Syndrome E
      1. Differential psychological approach to violence in juvenile delinquents
      2. Syndrome E and delinquency: the “banality” of Syndrome E?
   4. Changing Hearts and Minds to Grow Compassion: Syndrome C
      1. Implicit social bias and tribalism
      2. Multiple memory systems and implicit social bias
      3. Limiting implicit bias through individuation
      4. Countering implicit bias by hacking into memory during sleep
      5. A way forward, both implicitly and explicitly
8. PART IV - Responsibility and Judgment
   1. Obedience, Responsibility, Punishment
   2. Responsibility and Punishment: The International Criminal Justice Approach
      1. Central concerns of international criminal justice
      2. Focus of investigation and prosecution
      3. Responsibility
      4. Punishment
      5. Conclusion
   3. Neuroscience and the Law
      1. Introduction
      2. The progress achieved through science
      3. Possible dangers of using neuroscience in legal and judicial matters
      4. Conclusion
   4. How Does One Become a Torturer? The Case of Duch in Cambodia
      1. A psychogeopolitical approach
      2. Duch's life story
      3. The making of torturers: ten key points
      4. Is it possible to come out of disempathy and dehumanization?
9. Contents