Issei Sagawa : Getting into the Brain of a Cannibal

Cannibalism is the act of consuming flesh of another organism from the same species.

Cannibalism is not very rare amongst many kind of animals, it's part of the life cycle for many.


Cannibalism in humans is rare. There have been cases of a person eating another person. I'll be discussing one of such cases which is unique from others and try to unfold the scientific reason for such behaviour.


CASE


Issei Sagawa, born in Japan in 1949, was arrested in 1981 for murdering a woman and eating her flesh. In an interview Issei Sagawa said that he believes that he is from another world, that of cannibals, and that is the reason for his cannibalistic desires. It was in his childhood that he first got attracted to a female classmate and wanted to taste her thighs. He once tried to kill and eat a foreign woman but failed, and got arrested for attempted rape (actually the case was of attempted murder and cannibalism). He went to Paris for higher studies. There he met a woman in his university named Renie Hartevelt. He was highly attracted to her and found her the most beautiful woman. Once, he called her to his apartment for some study related help and shot a bullet in her head. After murdering her, he raped the corpse and then ate her body. The important thing to note here (for later reference) is that it is clearly visible from his description that he was interested in consuming only those parts that an average human male is sexually attracted to, he ate the corpse's bottom, thighs and breast. He was arrested two days later.


This absolutely was a very inhuman and cruel thing to do which deserves proper prosecution. But let's also try to learn what made him do this, why did he have such cannibalistic desires.

You can watch his interview here


I have a theory which can explain the cause of his heinous desires. 


THEORY


This theory involves neuroscience of somewhat high level so I'll be trying to lower the level of technicalities to make the theory understandable for most people.


Understanding Synaesthesia

In the world of neuroscience, synaesthesia is a famous case of brain disorder. In this disorder one kind of sense gets complementary to another. For example in a famous kind of synaesthesia, the synaesthete whenever watches a written number he sees it in a specific colour, if he sees "4" written somewhere, no matter what colour it is written in, he will see it in a specific colour (for example red), here number and colour sense are somewhat interlinked. This happens because of abnormal levels of neuroplasticity of the brain.


[Neuroplasticity : It is the property of brain to rewire throughout life, which means the connection between neurons can be (and are) changed through out (which earlier was thought to not be the case)] 


The part of the brain responsible for recognising a number is next to the part responsible for colours and due to abnormal neuroplasticity the neurons of these two brain parts get interlinked. Another important thing to know is that both these brain parts have further specific parts assigned to recognise specific numbers and colours. And in synaesthesia, for example, neurons of the brain part responsible for recognising the number "1" gets linked with neurons of part responsible for recognising the colour "red". So now whenever the person watches "1" the signal from the eyes reaches the neuron responsible of recognising it and that neuron fires (activates) after receiving the signal (making you know that the number written there is 1) but due to its attachment with neurons responsible for recognising red colour, the red colour neuron also fires (making you believe/hallucinate that the number is written in red colour).


Understanding Amygdala

Amygdala is a part of the brain mainly responsible for assigning different kinds of emotions to visual data. For example, when you see someone you love, the visual data of their appearance reaches from your eyes to your amygdala (through a complex path) and after reaching there the amygdala assigns emotions for the person (in this case emotion of love is assigned), if you see a wolf in your room, the visual data after reaching amygdala assigns you emotion of fear. 

(Please note that it is not that simple, this process is very complex but I don't want to try and complicate things here, so I am using the easy language.)


It is important to note that it is very clear that Sagawa's cannibalistic desires arise from his sexual desires, he wants to eat only women, and he mentions that he does it to satisfy his sexual desires. He also wants to eat only those body parts that an average male is sexually attracted to. 


Final Theory

So what I think is the case here is that he suffers from Synaesthesia and has abnormal neuroplasticity in his Amygdala, where the neurons responsible for sexual arousal have been linked with neurons responsible to make him crave to eat. So whenever he receives visual data that should arouse him sexually, the signal reaches the amygdala and fires the neuron responsible for his "aroused feeling" but since these neurons are linked with neurons responsible to make him "crave for food", these neurons fire too. And these mixed emotions ultimately result in a desire of "eating the object" (woman). And it is known that in due course of evolution, a male has been designed to get aroused by breasts and bottoms and so was Mr. Sagawa which was the cause for him eating only these parts.


I'm sure that I'm not the first to theorise the reasons for such cannibalistic desires. There must be others who got to this conclusion much earlier, but I couldn't find any such theory/conclusion on the internet. So if you came across anything related to this case, please let me know in the comment sections.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Rethinking Our Place in Space Time

The Imperfect Empty Diaries

The Perfect Life for my 6 year-old self