Brain Science and Political Belief
Brain science is providing some important insights into the mechanisms involved in a variety of beliefs including political, religious and moral beliefs. Dr. Jordan Grafman, Ph.D. currently with the Kessler Foundation has led some of the key research initiatives in this area of brain research. He recently presented at the May, 2011 Warren Frontiers in Neuroscience lecture series in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Here are some of the key points from his presentation and relevant published research manuscripts.
A important starting point in understanding how the brain processes political beliefs is to discover key elements of these beliefs. The classical description of political beliefs defines individuals long a single criterion domain, conservative to liberal. But statistical modeling of large numbers of individuals demonstrates three key domains for political belief. These domains appear somewhat independent of each other and appear to engage different brain neural circuits. The three domains and localized areas the brain involved include:
• individualism--medial prefrontal cortex and the temperoparietal junction
• conservatism-dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
• radicalism-ventral striatum and posterior cingulate
So how does brain circuitry differ between those who are interested in politics compared to those with little interest in the area? Grafman and colleagues from Italy as well as George Mason University in the U.S. examined this question in a series of 25 subjects using functional magnetic imaging scanning technology.
Subjects in the scanner were asked to agree or disagree with a variety of political opinions. Subjects who were interested in politics showed significantly more activation of the brains regions in the amygdala and ventral striatum. Subjects disinterested in politics showed limited activations in these regions regardless of the content of religious beliefs encountered.
The amygdala has been demonstrated to be an important region for processing both positive and negative emotional stimuli. The ventral striatum appears to be a key region in processing reward and positive affect.
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