Additional Information On The Disinformational Post on Normal Conservative Brains and Disease Causing a Liberal Shift

Psychological studies document differences between highly politically conservative and highly politically liberal participants. Political conservatives compared with liberals favor in-group conformity and out-group exclusion consistent with evolutionary behaviors for pathogen avoidance. Beyond differences in personality traits, the literature emphasizes differences in sensitivity and reactivity to negative stimuli, threat, and disgust between those on the extremes of a political conservative-liberal axis. Political conservatives, compared with political liberals, are more likely to interpret, attend to, remember, and respond to negative aspects of environmental stimuli, especially if they are novel and different. This “negativity bias” is evident in studies showing that political conservatism compared with liberalism is associated with greater, faster, and longer attentional focusing on negative images and greater physiological measures of arousal to them. Political conservatives compared with political liberals have a greater sense of threat from the same stimuli and show larger physiological responses to ambiguous stimuli. Political conservatives compared with political liberals are also more prone to respond with disgust to various situations, particularly if they violate a sense of purity.

Neuroimaging studies point to structures involved in a “conservative complex” primarily in the right frontotemporal region of the brain. In a structural MRI study, those with political conservative views versus those with political liberal views had greater gray matter in the right amygdala, a structure sensitive to fear and threat. Another fMRI study showed that political conservatives had greater activity in the right amygdala when risk-taking. Although prior fMRI studies have not found lateralization of emotional face-processing, including fearful faces, to the right amygdala, recent human and animal studies suggest a more nuanced lateralization of low intensity, rapid, automatic, and explicit recognition of fear and threat to the right amygdala with more delayed and detailed processing on the left. The anterior insula may be involved in generating disgust, and the right ventrolateral PFC participates in overall self-restraint. Finally, frontal structures and their amygdalar and other connections participate in an approach-avoidance dichotomy where left-sided activation results in approach to appetitive stimuli and right-sided activation results in withdrawal from aversive stimuli and avoidance of risk taking. Together, these right-sided structures appear to mediate conservative behavior, including political conservatism, and constitute a brake on change, maintaining stability, and protecting the status quo.

In addition to this “conservative complex,” there must be an “energization” or motivation for alternative action. The origin of this energization may be a preserved ACC, possibly lateralized to the left and consistent with the left hemisphere’s propensity for “approach” behavior. The ACC monitors changes in stimulus patterns and potential conflicts or ambiguity and redirects attention for resolving conflict and choosing new actions. In brain disease, a change toward liberal behavior requires not only an attenuation of the conservative complex brake, but also the ACC responding to stimuli with a choice for change.