# Brain thickness determines political leaning: study **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 31, 2010, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brain-thickness-determines-political-leaning-study/565967 "2010-12-31T17:21:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2010, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brain-thickness-determines-political-leaning-study/565967/1 "2010-12-31T17:21:04Z")
Apologies if this has already been posted, but I didn’t see it here. [Article](http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/brain-thickness-determines-political-leaning-study-20101229-199hk.html). > [@](#): > > Neuroscientists are examining whether political allegiances are hard-wired into people after finding evidence that the brains of conservatives are a different shape to those of left-wingers. > > … > > Self-proclaimed right-wingers had a more pronounced amygdala - a primitive part of the brain associated with emotion while their political opponents from the opposite end of the spectrum had thicker anterior cingulates. > > … > > “The anterior cingulate… was thicker the more people described themselves as liberal or left wing and thinner the more they described themselves as conservative or right wing,” he told the program. > > "The amygdala is a part of the brain which is very old and very ancient and thought to be very primitive and to do with the detection of emotions. The right amygdala was larger in those people who described themselves as conservative. ---
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2010, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brain-thickness-determines-political-leaning-study/565967/2 "2010-12-31T17:25:48Z")
Maybe the cause and effect is the other way. Like an exercised muscle. People disposed to be bleeding-heart impractical suckers employ emotion a lot more, while the cold cruel bastards don’t. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2010, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brain-thickness-determines-political-leaning-study/565967/3 "2010-12-31T17:27:49Z")
Nice that this article makes no attempt to tell you what the anterior cingulates does. Among other things it also plays a role in regulating emotions. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2010, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brain-thickness-determines-political-leaning-study/565967/4 "2010-12-31T17:28:33Z")
> [@wolfman](#): > > Maybe the cause and effect is the other way. Like an exercised muscle. People disposed to be bleeding-heart impractical suckers employ emotion a lot more, while the cold cruel bastards don’t. I think you have that backwards. The amygdala is the part associated with right-wingers, and it is thicker in them. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2010, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brain-thickness-determines-political-leaning-study/565967/5 "2010-12-31T17:35:12Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > Nice that this article makes no attempt to tell you what the anterior cingulates does. Among other things it also plays a role in regulating emotions. The [anterior cingulate cortex](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anterior_cingulate_cortex) also plays a role in rational cognitive functions. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2010, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brain-thickness-determines-political-leaning-study/565967/6 "2010-12-31T18:22:34Z")
The same study results were used in other articles to show that enlarged amygdala relates to increased social skills and a larger number of Facebook friends. > **[Study: More Friends on Facebook Equals A Bigger Amygdala In Your Brain |...](https://techland.time.com/2010/12/28/study-more-friends-on-facebook-equals-a-bigger-amygdala-in-your-brain/)** > > The number of Facebook friends you have is correlated to the size of your amygdala, the center used to process the memory of your emotional reactions in your brain, according to a new study published in Nature Neuroscience. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2010, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brain-thickness-determines-political-leaning-study/565967/7 "2010-12-31T18:56:02Z")
Reading **Johnny L.A.**'s article and several others I have read over the last few days give me the impression that too small a sample of people was used. 90 people in one, 58 in another, is this really enough to prove anything other than what you set out to prove? And _really_ Johnny, a study commissioned by Colin Firth? It’s New Year’s Eve, not April Fool’s Day. Here are several more articles from the last week or so about socially out going people. There are others about the amygdala of fearful people being larger. It is the “news-of-the week” human interest story. The obvious correlation between these findings is that the more liberal and less fearful you are, the fewer friends you have. :dubious: Limiting my Google search to the last week brought up 219,000 hits like these: > **[Social whirl of a life? Thank your amygdala](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/dec/26/social-life-brain-amygdala)** > > Researchers find almond-shaped clump of nerves in brain is larger in more gregarious people [http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/health/137398-out-going-social-people-may-have-different-brain-anatomy.html](http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/health/137398-out-going-social-people-may-have-different-brain-anatomy.html) > **[HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News](https://www.huffpost.com/?err_code=404&err_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2F2010%2F12%2F27%2Famygdala-study-brain-stru_n_801438.html)** > > Read the latest headlines, news stories, and opinion from Politics, Entertainment, Life, Perspectives, and more. [http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101226/full/news.2010.699.html](http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101226/full/news.2010.699.html) ---
**Author:** ![lavenderviolet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/cdc98d/32.png) [@lavenderviolet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lavenderviolet)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2010, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brain-thickness-determines-political-leaning-study/565967/8 "2010-12-31T19:18:26Z")
[Wiki’s section on the amygdala’s role in memory modulation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amygdala#Memory_modulation) references an interesting study: “Since previous reports have indicated that unique responses were observed at higher frequency in the artistic population than in the nonartistic normal population, this positive correlation suggests that amygdalar enlargement in the normal population might be related to creative mental activity.” This clearly proves that, with their larger amygdalae, conservatives are better able to think of creative solutions to problems instead of expecting the government to solve everything for them like liberals do. 😉 I am being facetious there, but my real point is this: One problem in going by media reports on these matters is that pop media journalists are generally only slightly better than drunken lemurs at correctly analyzing medical and scientific research. They often get the details wrong or draw incorrect conclusions because most of them aren’t very well trained in science. They simply don’t understand what they’re talking about when it comes to subtle or technical details. Maybe when this research finishes the peer review process and gets published we can read the actual source and know what it really means. Another way to look at this is that if political differences are part of hard-wired brain anatomy, well, that means your opponents can’t help being who they are! Maybe conservatives are “born that way” just like gays are…in which case, why blame people for being what they can’t help being? ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2010, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brain-thickness-determines-political-leaning-study/565967/9 "2010-12-31T21:27:55Z")
I am not an fMRI person, but someone I know who is claims that the anterior cingulate is implicated in almost every activity, and therefore it is worth a rolleyes if a study uses ACC activity as its main finding, as it basically says “the participant did/saw/reacted to something.” ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2010, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brain-thickness-determines-political-leaning-study/565967/10 "2010-12-31T21:34:38Z")
> [@wolfman](#): > > Maybe the cause and effect is the other way. Like an exercised muscle. People disposed to be bleeding-heart impractical suckers employ emotion a lot more, while the cold cruel bastards don’t. It’s my understanding that the structures in an adult brain don’t grow or shrink at all. The most that happens is that resources are reassigned within a particular structure (such as away from controlling the face and towards controlling the hands, resulting in the stereotypically less expressive “professional” look). ---
**Author:** ![Baal\_Houtham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baal_houtham/32/13604_2.png) [@Baal\_Houtham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baal_Houtham)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2011, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brain-thickness-determines-political-leaning-study/565967/11 "2011-01-01T03:27:20Z")
I hope the research proves meaningful. We humans can always use more accurate information about our behavior. However… Although I can’t buy the concept of freewill, finding that my political philosophies are significantly influenced by such a simple brain variation could be disconcerting. Of course I’d like to think that the Tea Party people and Dick Cheney are just cranially crippled, but I suppose I should just wait calmly for confirming evidence. And hope the deficiencies don’t turn out to be in my own head. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2011, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brain-thickness-determines-political-leaning-study/565967/12 "2011-01-01T03:37:37Z")
Interesting that conservatives often describe themselves a calculating rationalists who practice realpolitik. It would be really funny if they are scientifically shown to be fearful crybabies. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2011, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brain-thickness-determines-political-leaning-study/565967/13 "2011-01-01T04:12:22Z")
And what about those of us whose political leanings have drastically changed over time? Have our brains changed shape? ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2011, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brain-thickness-determines-political-leaning-study/565967/14 "2011-01-01T04:34:58Z")
You can do better than that **Johnny L.A.**. I have an academic background in behavioral neuroscience and the reputable science is way more fundamental than that. An OP like this is on the same level as an e-mail forward that your great aunt sends you. These types of studies go through three stages: Scientists make some sweeping claims as part of a study that may or may not be flawed to begin with, bad journalists who don’t know anything add to it and then print a story based on that one study, and then people clip from it and send it to their friends as a fact. You helped complete the third stage and that isn’t a good thing from an established Doper. You can’t control what the scientists and journalists do but you can control what appears on the SDMB Google searches and this one is not good regardless of your political feelings. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2011, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brain-thickness-determines-political-leaning-study/565967/15 "2011-01-01T10:27:44Z")
Huh. I’d’ve thought it the other way. It’s because of my emotions that I am more liberal. When I hear about an injustice, I instantly think about how that would feel to me, and am capable of getting quite angry about it. When I later stop to think about it, I’m usually more moderate. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2011, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brain-thickness-determines-political-leaning-study/565967/16 "2011-01-02T04:59:08Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > And what about those of us whose political leanings have drastically changed over time? Have our brains changed shape? Amygdala volume decreases over time, at least in younger people, so I guess that explains why we tend to become more conservative with age…wait, it should be the opposite. Never mind. > [@Dallas Jones](#): > > The same study results were used in other articles to show that enlarged amygdala relates to increased social skills and a larger number of Facebook friends. There you go, liberals tend to be loners who feel more empathy towards their fellow man. Makes perfect sense. ---
**Author:** ![heavyarms553](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/779978/32.png) [@heavyarms553](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/heavyarms553)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2011, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brain-thickness-determines-political-leaning-study/565967/17 "2011-01-02T08:06:52Z")
The anterior cingulate is also responsible for attributing attention to pain. Coincidence? Yeah probably. ---
**Author:** ![phouka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c5a1d2/32.png) [@phouka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phouka)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2011, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brain-thickness-determines-political-leaning-study/565967/18 "2011-01-03T05:12:43Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > It’s my understanding that the structures in an adult brain don’t grow or shrink at all. This is inaccurate. Ten years ago, the University College London determined that taxi drivers’ brains changed remarkably over the course of their first three years’ training - the crucial period of time when they learned “the knowledge”, a mental map of all the roads within a six mile radius of Charing Cross. The hippocampus is associated with long-term learning and 3D spatial navigation. Before the training, the taxi drivers had hippocampi statistically the same as the general population. Afterwards, the posterior hippocampi were larger, and the anterior hippocampi were smaller. [Cite](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/677048.stm). It stands to reason that if learning anything involves the creation of new synapses on a microscopic scale, learning a great deal of anything will involve changes on the macroscopic scale. Not to mention, when stroke victims recover abilities like speech and motor functions, they have not resurrected the brain cells killed by ischemia but have remodeled neural connections to either reroute past the dead area or recreate the skills in a nearby area. The brain is far more plastic than we once thought. ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [January 3, 2011, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brain-thickness-determines-political-leaning-study/565967/19 "2011-01-03T20:49:52Z")
So…you are saying Liberals are inferior?