George Orwell's dystopia in 1984, for the most pessimistic, is closer today than yesterday.
“I understand the concern but I want to stress that we cannot control ideology but only predict it by brain response. I don't think it's a real danger. And I would love to try to find the optimistic side of our findings: that it makes people more aware of how important it is that there is a common ground before arguing”, explains Yaara Yeshurun-Dishon, a neurologist from Israel, to La Vanguardia. from Tel Aviv University.
Their findings, paralleling those of other research at the prestigious Brown University in the lab of Dr. Oriel FeldmanHall, are, however, far from going unnoticed. The results indicate that it is possible to distinguish how the brains of people on opposite political extremes behave differently and how, therefore, it can be detected if one falls on one or the other political spectrum without opening their mouths, using a simple scanner of magnetic resonance while launching specific words-photos-videos.
Blood flow, as an indicator of neuronal activity, follows differentiated activity patterns.
According to their research (that of FeldmanHall and his team published in Science advances and that of Yeshurun-Dishon and his team in The journal of neuroscience), the response was similar to several questions considered rather neutral, but diverged when presented with content on topics more polarizing such as immigration. FeldmanHall discerned specific patterns in the parts of the brain responsible for emotions and cognition. Yeshurun-Dishon, in which they deal with hearing, vision and movement.
In both the findings are similar: "There does not seem to be any cultural specificity", it is added. Both liberal and conservative brains have exactly the same thing, she warns herself. "It's not about liberal brains being different from Republican brains," Brown's neurologist insists. But from Tel Aviv Yeshurun-Dishon certifies that although it is not a question of different political ideologies, different brains, it is a: "To the same political stimulus, different brain response depending on these political ideas."
“Everything we do in the world, whether it's having a cup of coffee, talking to someone, sitting on the couch or going for a walk, is all the product of neurons firing in the brain. He is totally responsible for everything we do” he explains to this newspaper FeldmanHall. And he points out: “Does our research explain everything? No, it's not that simple. You can't say the whole reason we have political polarization is because of the two-brained way. It is only part of the story and the answer. It only explains some reasons for political polarization.”
And yet:
-If ideology can be predicted by brain response, are there some brain regions more linked to the left and others more linked to the right? Which are the most relevant according to our ideological preference?, he wonders.
FeldmanHall responds from the US: “It's not a good way to treat it because one part of the brain doesn't work on its own. You need all your brain to make things happen. And so we find that things like the amygdala, which is often involved in threat and fear, has a role, although it's not necessarily more important than the area called the striatum, which is important for courage and learning about the world. . It cannot be said that one is more important than the other.
Yeshurun-Dishon, at the same time, from Israel: “Not everything is related to the primary regions. For example, also the regions within the default neural network [DMN for its acronym in English; our brain autopilot] and language regions had a partisan-dependent response. No specific region was more important than others, but in general, we could predict ideology based on responses in regions within the primary sensory cortex and the DMN. Somatosensory, premotor, and motor cortex regions were activated when right-wing participants viewed right-wing content.”
Translation: the more aligned the person is with a group and their ideas, the more synchronized their brain response was even in the brain areas active when we move and perceive our environment. "Rightists and leftists in Israel, literally, and not just metaphorically, do not see or hear the same things," this scientist illustrated in the Israeli media.
We live in a very polarized world. Is today's brain different from the past?, she adds.
“I don't think our brains are any different than they were in the past. I think it comes down to the fact that we live in a world where the same type of information is being told over and over again; we live like in these echo chambers and if we hear the same information so many times, over and over again, we come to value it in a certain way and care about it in a certain way and our brains simply reflect that we value certain things differently than others . For example, the way we think about abortion or the way we think about immigration or freedom. What has changed over the years is the conversation about these issues, and not our brains”, sums up FeldmanHall.
For all these reasons, this neurologist insists, from her laboratory in Providence, Rhode Island, that given the objections that this research may generate (“Isn't it dangerous? Isn't it like being closer to the Orwellian 1984 in order to be able to control what the citizen?”) “Understanding how the brain works does not mean that we can control a person. It is studied to understand why people do the things they do. It's not about control."
The question that remains unanswered is whether political ideas change the brain or is it the configuration of the brain that generates left or right ideas. "Great question, which this study cannot answer," concludes Yeshurun-Dishon.
