ABSTRACT
The art of defining disorder and linking it to behaviour has been at its most stretched in understanding criminal behaviours. The history of the relationship between epilepsy and crime, with an apparent need to create a new category of disorder when supporting physical evidence fails, has some resemblances to the more modern English story of dangerous and severe personality disorder. Crime can only very rarely be attributed to epileptic automatisms or post-ictal confusion. Insulin abuse has been implicated in a number of serious offences, including violent crime against children and the so-called Munchausen syndrome by proxy. Other disorders which produce a discrete or transient episode of memory loss, such as toxic or post-ECT confusional states, transient ischaemic episodes, or the transient global amnesia syndrome are very unlikely to be associated with crime. Diffusion tensor imaging is offering greater insights into the human brain than that afforded by traditional magnetic resonance imaging studies.
