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70 million pet dogs and 74.1 million pet cats in the U.S

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30 to 60% of perpetrators of intimate partner violence also abuse children
in 3 girls and 1 in 7 boys will be sexually assaulted by the time they reach 18; (Department of Justice)
Approximately 70 percent of children that die from abuse are under the age of 4;
More than 4 children die each day because of child abuse;
About 30 percent of abused and neglected children will later abuse their own children,

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On average, nearly 20 people per minute are physically abused by an intimate partner in the United States
1 in 10 women have been raped
1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 men have been victims of severe physical violence
homicides found that 20% of victims were not the intimate partners

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Showing survey (at Wal-Mart)
"Violence is caused by...
Pics off abuse/ neglect
Statistics

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Neural circuits
Threat detection mechanism
Hypothalamus
Lateral septum
Ventrolateral part of ventromedial hypothalamus. VMHvl

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hurt animals because they don't think about or realize what they are doing.
cruel types of discipline
don't pay attention. For example, someone might forget to give their cat water for a few days or leave their dog in a car on a hot day
forget or don't care enough
some people hurt animals even though they think they're helping them
hurt animals because they aren't thinking, or because they can't stand up to their friends and peer pressure. The ones who are aren't really thinking might be mad at someone else (like their parents) and kick their pet dog because they can't kick their parents. Or they may think it's fun to watch an animal run away scared
enjoy hurting things, or because it makes them feel powerful
would hurt other people
because animals are more helpless than people.
want to have control
may hurt the animal to control another person.
psychological problems
probably born with their problems, but others can get their problems from brain damage, poisonous environments, or by being treated badly themselves.

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http://thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/a/a_03/a_03_cr/a_03_cr_que/a_03_cr_que_1a.jpg

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Aggression is all in the mind - specifically, the hypothalamus
the area of the mammalian brain that controls body temperature, hunger and sleep.
conducted in mice,
sudden, violent behavior in male mice was associated with changes in a brain structure called the lateral septum.
the researchers trained male mice to attack weaker ones. The team then observed how aggressively the male mice tried to get access to and harass other mice.
past studies have linked aggressive behavior to the hypothalamus, the latest study looked specifically at the ventrolateral part of the ventromedial hypothalamus (VMHvl),
nerve cell activity in the VMHvl peaked just before the mice poked their noses through the holes, and this occurred even when the hostile mice could not smell or see the victim mice.
nerve cell activity in the VMHvl increased ten-fold during the first moments after the victim mice appeared.
genetically stopping VMHvl activity brought a halt to almost all of the aggressive motivations in the mice, but it did not stop other learned behaviors,
targeting the VMHvl in the human brain in order to stop aggression is "only a distant possibility,
ventrolateral part of the ventromedial hypothalamus

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“...homicide is the third to 5th most common cause of death in all age brackets between 1-44 years. “
Nine out of ten people in prison for violent crime are men. Males die from homicide at three times the rate of women. When the victim is a spouse or intimate partner women are murdered at 3.3 times the rate of men. Males commit suicide at four times the rate of females.
We have neural circuits of rage and violence because we need them. As a species we needed deadly violence to obtain food, to protect ourselves, our family, our group, and unfortunately we still need them today.
These circuits of aggression are part of the brain’s threat detection mechanism embedded deep in the unconscious region of the brain where sex, thirst, and feeding are also controlled.

Each of these violent acts can be understood as specific behaviors that are controlled, as are all behaviors, by specific circuits in the brain activated by specific triggers.

Most of the time the neural circuits of aggression are life-saving,but sometimes they misfire and violence explodes inappropriately
we see the human brain struggling to cope with an environment it was never designed to confront

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Anonymous survey on abuse/animal abuse