Political orientation may be tied to differences in the very structures of our brain!

Your political views are formed in the brain. 

It is true, sometimes you are on an entirely different planet from the person you are talking with, as they are at the opposite end of the political spectrum from you.




Political Views Are Reflected in Brain Structure




ScienceDaily
Apr. 7, 2011



We all know that people at opposite ends of the political spectrum often really can't see eye to eye. Now, a new report published online on April 7th in Current Biology, reveals that those differences in political orientation are tied to differences in the very structures of our brains.


Individuals who call themselves liberal tend to have larger anterior cingulate cortexes, while those who call themselves conservative have larger amygdalas. Based on what is known about the functions of those two brain regions, the structural differences are consistent with reports showing a greater ability of liberals to cope with conflicting information and a greater ability of conservatives to recognize a threat, the researchers say.


"Previously, some psychological traits were known to be predictive of an individual's political orientation," said Ryota Kanai of the University College London. "Our study now links such personality traits with specific brain structure."

Kanai said his study was prompted by reports from others showing greater anterior cingulate cortex response to conflicting information among liberals. "That was the first neuroscientific evidence for biological differences between liberals and conservatives," he explained.

There had also been many prior psychological reports showing that conservatives are more sensitive to threat or anxiety in the face of uncertainty, while liberals tend to be more open to new experiences. Kanai's team suspected that such fundamental differences in personality might show up in the brain.

And, indeed, that's exactly what they found. Kanai says they can't yet say for sure which came first. It's possible that brain structure isn't set in early life, but rather can be shaped over time by our experiences. And, of course, some people have been known to change their views over the course of a lifetime.

It's also true that our political persuasions can fall into many more categories than liberal and conservative. "In principle, our research method can be applied to find brain structure differences in political dimensions other than the simplistic left- versus right-wingers," Kanai said. Perhaps differences in the brain explain why some people really have no interest in politics at all or why some people line up for Macs while others stick with their PCs. All of these tendencies may be related in interesting ways to the peculiarities of our personalities and in turn to the way our brains are put together.

Still, Kanai cautioned against taking the findings too far, citing many uncertainties about how the correlations they see come about.

"It's very unlikely that actual political orientation is directly encoded in these brain regions," he said. "More work is needed to determine how these brain structures mediate the formation of political attitude."




1.Ryota Kanai, Tom Feilden, Colin Firth, Geraint Rees. Political Orientations Are Correlated with Brain Structure in Young Adults. Current Biology, 07 April 2011 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2011.03.017

































political

Drugs and Your Brain

This explains all my past girlfriends issues!



Scientific American
August 27, 2003


Drug Use Impairs Ability to Learn from Future Experiences

By Sarah Graham




There's another reason to say no to drugs. The results of a rat study published online this week by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences indicate that past use of amphetamines and cocaine can impair the brain¿s ability to learn from new experiences.

Our brains typically respond to novel situations by forming additional connections between neurons. This rewiring is thought to underlie learning and memory, as well as other cognitive and behavioral functions. Because drug use has also been shown to cause changes in the brain, Bryan Kolb of the University of Lethbridge in Alberta and his colleagues devised a study to investigate the interactive effect of fresh experiences and pyschostimulant drugs (namely amphetamine and cocaine) on the brain. The researchers first gave rats one of the drugs or a saline solution for 20 days. At the end of this period, half of the animals were moved to complex new cages containing bridges, ramps, tunnels and other toys, while the rest remained in ordinary laboratory enclosures. After three and a half months, the scientists examined the rats' brains and counted the number and density of branches of neurons known as dendrites. The team found that rats that had received saline solutions and had lived in a challenging environment had a greater number of neuronal connections than control animals did. Rats given either amphetamines or cocaine, in contrast, did not experience a similar increase in brain connections after living in the stimulating surroundings.

"The findings from this study indicate that at least some of the cognitive and behavioral advantages that accrue with experience may be diminished by prior exposure to psychostimulant drugs," Kolb says. "This impairment of the ability of specific brain circuits to change in response to experiences may help explain some of the behavioral and cognitive deficits seen in people who are addicted to drugs." The researchers also note, however , that the relationship might work both ways. That is, certain experiences might be able to influence later effects of drugs.

 
 
 
 
 
 
drugs

Men and Women: Differences.

Anthropologists (some / those of a particular inclination) and others, should pay attention to these studies. They might learn something.




BBC News

Art appreciation 'a gender issue'

Published: 2009/02/24 01:43:15 GMT


When it comes to appreciating art, men and women really do think differently, research shows.
While women use both sides of their brain, men only use the right half to judge if a piece of work is beautiful, a team of scientists discovered.

This may reflect the different ways men and women's minds have evolved - men tend to focus on the big picture while women take in "local" details too.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports the findings.

Professor Francisco Ayala, from the University of California Irvine, and colleagues asked 10 men and 10 women to judge the beauty of artists paintings and photographs of urban and rural landscapes.

“ We know for sure that there are differences between the male and female brain ” Professor Friedermann Pulvermuller, an expert in brain studies at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit.

At the same time, the researchers measured the magnetic fields produced by electrical activity in the brains of the volunteers.

This revealed that both men and women were using a part of the brain associated with spatial awareness, called the parietal lobe. However, while women used both right and left sides, men used only the right parietal lobe.

The researchers suggest that this is because women are contextualising the information and thinking more about the details of what they are seeing, assessing the position of objects according broad categories, such as "above" or "below", or "left" or "right".

The men, they say, are focussing on the overall image using a more precise form of mental mapping.

Evolutionary

And they say the differences may have evolved millions of years ago when early humans became hunter gatherers.

Hunting, traditionally done by men, required a "co-ordinating" ability to track animals accurately while on the move. A "categorical" spatial awareness was better suited to foraging for fruit, roots or berries, a job mainly carried out by women.

"Women tend to be more aware than men of objects around them, including those that seem irrelevant to the current task, whereas men out-perform women in navigation tasks," the scientists told PNAS.

"Men tend to solve navigation tasks by using orientation-based strategies involving distance concepts and cardinal directions, whereas women tend to base their activities on remembering the location of landmarks and relative directions, such as 'left from', or 'to the right of'."

The different ways men and women mapped the world appeared to influence their perception of beauty, they believe.

Professor Friedermann Pulvermuller, an expert in brain studies at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, said: "This is an interesting study. We know for sure that there are differences between the male and female brain. The connections between the two hemispheres is better developed in females generally.

"So the findings are in agreement with what we know, but we would need more work before we could make any firm conclusions."









Men and Women

Memory Tricks

I wish I could make my meory forget some things and people, but ... this is supposed to improve the memory - so they say.

So go ahead, when you're caught doodling - just say you are improving your memory.





Take Note: Doodling Can Help Memory

By HealthDay - Fri Feb 27, 8:48 PM PST

FRIDAY, Feb. 27 (HealthDay News) -- You might look like you're not paying attention when you doodle, but science says otherwise

Researchers in the United Kingdom found that test subjects who doodled while listening to a recorded message had a 29 percent better recall of the message's details than those who didn't doodle. The findings were published in Applied Cognitive Psychology.

"If someone is doing a boring task, like listening to a dull telephone conversation, they may start to daydream," study researcher Professor Jackie Andrade, of the School of Psychology at the University of Plymouth, said in a news release issued by the journal's publisher. "Daydreaming distracts them from the task, resulting in poorer performance. A simple task, like doodling, may be sufficient to stop daydreaming without affecting performance on the main task."

For the experiment, a two-and-a-half minute listing of several people's names and places was played for test subjects, who were charged with writing down only the names of the people said to be attending a party.

During the recording, half the participants were asked to simultaneously shade in shapes on a piece of paper without attention to neatness. Participants were not told they were taking part in a memory test.

When the recording ended, all were asked for the eight names of those attending the party as well as eight place names mentioned in the audio. Those asked to doodle wrote down, on average, 7.5 names and places, while those who didn't doodle listed only 5.8.







memory

Brain Power

Study Suggests Why Gut Instincts Work

Mon Feb 9, 2009
LiveScience.com

Sometimes when you think you're guessing, your brain may actually know better.

After conducting some unique memory and recognition tests, while also recording subjects' brain waves, scientists conclude that some gut feelings are not just guesswork after all. Rather, we access memories we aren't even aware we have.

"We may actually know more than we think we know in everyday situations, too," said Ken Paller, professor of psychology at Northwestern University and co-researcher on the study.

"Unconscious memory may come into play, for example, in recognizing the face of a perpetrator of a crime or the correct answer on a test. Or the choice from a horde of consumer products may be driven by memories that are quite alive on an unconscious level."

The findings were published online Sunday in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

The research, done with only a couple dozen participants, adds to a growing body of conflicting evidence about decision-making. In one study done in 2007, researchers found that quick decisions were better than those given lots of thought. But a study last year suggested neither snap judgments nor "sleeping on it" trump good old-fashioned conscious thought.

The new study

During the first part of the memory test in the new study, participants were shown a series of colorful kaleidoscope images that flashed on a computer screen. Half of the images were viewed with full attention as participants tried to memorize them. While viewing the other half, the participants were distracted: They heard a spoken number that they had to keep in mind until the next trial, when they indicated whether it was odd or even.

In other words, they could focus on memorizing half of the images but were greatly distracted from memorizing the others.

A bit later, they viewed pairs of similar kaleidoscope images in a recognition test.

"Remarkably, people were more accurate in selecting the old image when they had been distracted than when they had paid full attention," Paller said. "They also were more accurate when they claimed to be guessing than when they registered some familiarity for the image."

Splitting attention during a memory test usually makes memory worse.

"But our research showed that even when people weren't paying as much attention, their visual system was storing information quite well," Paller said.

The brain's role

During the tests, electrical signals in the brain were recorded from a set of electrodes placed on each person's head. The brain waves during implicit recognition were distinct from those associated with conscious memory experiences. A unique signal of implicit recognition was seen a quarter of a second after study participants saw each old image.

Other related research has shown that amnesia victims with severe memory problems often have strong implicit memories, Paller and his colleague, Joel L. Voss of the Beckman Institute, said in a statement.

"Intuition may have an important role in finding answers to all sorts of problems in everyday life," Paller said.





brain