Brain Politics

ori

ori

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cannot resist posting this here:

Kanai et al. Current Biology April 2011 said:
Here we show that this functional correlate of political attitudes has a counterpart in brain structure. In a large sample of young adults, we related self-reported political attitudes to gray matter volume using structural MRI. We found that greater liberalism was associated with increased gray matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex, whereas greater conservatism was associated with increased volume of the right amygdala.
Click to expand...

and a short excerpt from the actual article:

The amygdala has many functions, including fear processing. Individuals with a large amygdala are more sensitive to fear, which, taken together with our findings, might suggest the testable hypothesis that individuals with larger amygdala are more inclined to integrate conservative views into their belief system. (...) On the other hand, our finding of an association between anterior cingulate cortex volume and political attitudes may be linked with tolerance to uncertainty. One of the functions of the anterior cingulate cortex is to monitor uncertainty and conflicts. Thus, it is conceivable that individuals with a larger ACC have a higher capacity to tolerate uncertainty and conflicts, allowing them to accept more liberal views.
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I had to google to find out where the amygdala were even located:

128px-Amyg.png


There is apparently good news though. Enough binge drinking seems to result in a deterioration of overly developed amygdala.

The amygdala appears to play a role in binge drinking, being damaged by repeated episodes of intoxication and withdrawal.[38] Alcoholism is associated with dampened activation in brain networks responsible for emotional processing, including the amygdala.[39] Protein kinase C-epsilon in the amygdala appears to be critical for the development of high ethanol intake.[40]
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As much fun as it is to speculate about these things....

Also from the same article:

"However, it should be noted that every brain region, including those identified here, invariably participates in multiple psychological processes. It is therefore not possible to unambiguously infer from involvement of a particular brain area that a particular psychological process must be involved."
 
Formaldehyde said:
I had to google to find out where the amygdala were even located:

128px-Amyg.png


There is apparently good news though. Enough binge drinking seems to result in a deterioration of overly developed amygdala.
Click to expand...

Do people that espouse liberalism even have a amygdala?:mischief:
 
amygdala.jpg



So what if we have it removed...."NO FEAR!!!"?



EDIT: Maybe so

Burton M. Slotnicka

Laboratory of Brain Evolution and Behavior, National Institute of Mental Health Bethesda, Maryland 20014 USA
Received 14 June 1973.
Available online 11 March 2003.

Abstract

Mice with lateral amygdala lesions showed a deficit in passive avoidance behavior during a 10-min test of shock-contingent activity. Although these mice received more shocks than controls they displayed little or no evidence of fear behavior and continued to make punished responses throughout the test period. These results, together with those of previous studies, suggest that the impairment in shock motivated behavior in animals with amygdala lesions is due to a decrement in fear arousal.

Keywords: Amygdala; Fear behavior; Passive avoidance; Mice
.
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There's a lot of interesting research about the brain & politics.

http://www.livescience.com/9205-political-leanings-revealed-eyes.html

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/03/100303-liberals-atheists-smarter-evolution-evolved/

and some interesting evidence about wealth & the brain :
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/17/upper-class-emotions_n_798292.html

Wealthy Have Difficulty Detecting Emotions: Study

Rich people don't choose to be rude. They simply can't help it.

Affluent people -- in terms of income, social status and education -- have trouble detecting others' emotions, a study in Psychological Science found. While lower-class people are generally skilled at figuring out what other people are feeling, their upper-class fellows are more insensitive.

The wealthy don't need to rely on others for help, the study determined, and so their people skills have atrophied.

"They're less concerned and less perceptive of other people's needs and wishes," said study co-author Michael Kraus, according to MSNBC. "They show a deficit in empathic accuracy."

In the study, people with more education and from wealthier backgrounds had more difficulty interpreting pictures of faces. While "lower-class" people tended to correctly identify emotions, "upper-class" people had trouble.
Click to expand...
 
agreed, I'm very liberal on social issues (drugs, birth control etc.), but on economic policy I'm conservative.

As for this research, who is to say having a smaller amygdala is a good thing? Fear is there for a reason. There are many instances where it's good to have fear. Yes, sometimes I do fear change. Mainly because change is unnecessary. I always say. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. We used to be far and away the richest and most powerful nation until liberal economic policies took over in the 60's and beyond. Now China will soon surpass us. And yes, I do fear that. Men without fear often do crazy stuff that ends up with them being dead.
 
"General.....we have a FEAR-gap."
 
BRB, binge drinking.
 
Think of it as a cure for not being afraid of unions, Muslims, and Latinos.
 
Are you afraid of unions, Muslims, or Latinos?

If not, you are probably not that conservative.

If so, you might want to consider binge drinking.
 
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