National Geographic – By Simon Worrall – PUBLISHED February 7, 2016

The same group of neurons could make you a hero—or a rage-filled aggressor.

We’ve all been there: Some jerk cuts you off on the highway. You lean on the horn, scream abuse. You want to get out the car and kick the @#$% out of the bozo’s SUV.

Road rage is just one example of what neurobiologist Douglas Fields calls “snapping.” From domestic violence to mass shootings, the news is full of stories of seemingly “normal” people suddenly going berserk. The easy availability of guns only compounds the problem.

But how and why does this happen? The traditional explanation is that these outbreaks of rage and violence are aberrations: the result of moral and psychological defects. But in his timely new book, Why We Snap: Understanding the Rage Circuit in Your Brain, Fields shows that violent behavior is often the result of the clash between the modern world and the evolutionary hardwiring of our brains—and that, unless we understand its triggers, we are all capable of snapping.

Speaking from his home in Bethesda, Maryland, Fields explains ….. read more here