> Source: University <www.ucla.edu> of California - Los Angeles
>
> Posted: July 13, 2006
A new UCLA imaging study finds political party allegiance affects the brain
> activity of partisans viewing the faces of candidates.
>
> Published online July 9, 2006, by the peer-reviewed journal
> Neuropsychologia, the study finds a partisan's brain responds to the
> opposition candidate's face by activating cognitive networks designed to
> regulate emotion.
>
> Researchers at the Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human
> Behavior at UCLA suggest the neural activity has one of three goals: 1)
> suppression of unpleasant emotions; 2) suppression of latent positive
> feelings toward an opposing candidate; or 3) an increase in negative
> feelings toward an opposing candidate.
>
> "We still have much to learn about the neural basis of political decision
> making; however, these findings show party allegiance has a clear impact on
> brain activity," said lead author Marco Iacoboni, associate professor in
> residence at the Semel Institute, the David Geffen School of Medicine at
> UCLA and the UCLA Brain Research Institute.
>
> "Most importantly, our findings show how political attitudes can guide the
> activation of emotional systems in the brain and influence how people
> regulate those emotional responses," Iacoboni said. "Politics is a
> ubiquitous form of human social interaction and may very well be an
> effective way of learning more about the neural basis of social behavior."
>
> Using powerful fMRI equipment at the Semel Institute's Ahmanson-Lovelace
> Brain Mapping Center, the research team scanned the brains of 10 registered
> Democrats and 10 registered Republicans as the subjects viewed the faces of
> 2004 presidential contenders George Bush, John Kerry and Ralph Nader. The
> study was conducted in the heat of the campaign that year.
>
> Viewing an opposition candidate produced signal changes in cognitive control
> circuitry in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and anterior
> cingulated cortex (ACC), as well as in emotional regions in the insula and
> anterior temporal poles. The ACC is important to attention control and
> self-monitoring, and together with the DLPFC forms a network that monitors
> response conflict and, when necessary, regulates emotion.
>
> The level of network activity in study participants correlated with
> self-reported ratings about how the subject felt emotionally about the
> candidates. The more negative the feelings about the opponent and more
> positive the feelings about the favorite candidate, the greater the brain
> activity discriminated between the two faces.
>
> The effect was strongest for ratings of George Bush, which tended to differ
> more between Democrats and Republicans than did ratings of John Kerry. In
> addition, Republicans showed widespread signal changes looking at Nader,
> compared with Bush. Those changes were not seen in Democrats as they viewed
> Nader.
>
> The research was supported in part by FKF Applied Research LLC. Other
> support was provided by the Brain Mapping Medical Research Organization,
> Brain Mapping Support Foundation, Pierson-Lovelace Foundation, The Ahmanson
> Foundation, Tamkin Foundation, Jennifer Jones-Simon Foundation, Capital
> Group Companies Charitable Foundation, Robson Family, William M. and Linda
> R. Dietel Philanthropic Fund at the Northern Piedmont Community Foundation,
> Northstar Fund, and National Center for Research Resources grants.
>
> Co-investigators with Iacoboni were Jonas T. Kaplan and Joshua Freeman of
> the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA and the
> David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.