Just read a fascinating article in June, 2008, Scientific American: "The Neurobiology of Trust" by Paul J. Zak. Unlike women, men "in trying social circumstances" experience a rise in "high octane" testosterone (DHT) which boosts their desire to fight. Amazingly, 2% of the people studied trusted no one, and "were indifferent to another's suffering.” Because this group had unusually high levels of oxytocin in their blood, and animal studies show this hormone predicts more nurturing behaviors not less, they may simply have defective brain receptors for oxytocin.
Bottom Line
Imagine if we could test for these brain abnormalities at birth, and be able to make statements like, “This child has a 95% probability of becoming a sociopath within 10 years”. I’m guessing it will take this kind of science before we can begin to end the recurring conflicts and human rights abuses we see today.

A question I am very interested in is whether the neural architecture of the brain, imposes fundamental constraints on human nature. If we are to sketch a model of human nature, will it be a more or less closed model with well defined plasticity, or will it be an open ended model with well defined constraints.

Rimpoche,

After taking a look at your blog site, I can understand your interest.

Not knowing your background beyond that, I don't want to be presumptuous in recommending some references if you've already seen them. But I think there has been a descent amount of headway in neuroscience over the last ten years to start formulating an outline answer to your thought query.

My current research interests include the search for sapience - the brain basis of wisdom. You can take a look at my research page at: http://faculty.washington.edu/gmobus/research.html

If you scroll down a bit you will see a bibliography link that has some of the more helpful books I've read over the years. Right now I'm just finishing up Dan Goleman's work, "Social Intelligence". He draws heavily on neuroscience and especially work on mirror neurons in explaining a lot of our social thinking and feelings.