It’s been more than a month since Stephen Paddock gunned down 58 people in Las Vegas. While US security agencies are scrambling to find a motive, Paddock’s brains have been sent to a Stanford University lab for examination. Can a microscope find the motive?
Tumours and violence
The Stanford lab is headed by Dr Hannes Vogel, a neuropathologist. “The magnitude of this tragedy has so many people wondering how it could have evolved … all these speculations out there will be put to rest, I think,” he told the New York Times’ Sheri Fink. The lab will analyse if neurological diseases or tumours in Paddock’s brain made him violent
Looking for motive under microscope
Paddock’s brain had already undergone a preliminary assessment. In the lab, Vogel will take thin slices of the brain tissue, stain it with various dyes and examine it under the microscope
This way, a brain can reveal degenerative disorders that can contribute to depression or poor emotional control, writes science journalist Adam Rogers in Wired. But this alone might not be enough to reveal Paddock’s motive, say experts