A scientific study at Britain’s University College London finds that conservative brains have a larger “fear center” and smaller center of courage and optimism. No wonder the Tea Party hates science and foreigners.
Brain scans found that political conservatives tend to have a larger amygdala, often called the “primitive brain,” the structure responsible for emotions like fear. Conservatives also seem to have a smaller anterior cingulate, the part of the brain responsible for courage and optimism.
If this news makes you want to check your own amygdala, you can’t miss it. It’s that almond-shaped mass in the temporal lobes adjacent to the hippocampus.
Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
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Tags: "Tea Party", anatomy, brain, conservatives, neurobiology, neuroscience, science, Tories
NotionsCapital 
June 2, 2011 at 1:35 am
shouldn’t your graphic show a slight variation? it suggests both brains are the same. they’re not. [that’s the whole point of the study you reference].
June 2, 2011 at 7:40 am
keith wrote: shouldn’t your graphic show a slight variation?
I actually prepared an image that showed the amygdala, but it was no fun. This one references a scene from the 1931 movie Frankenstein.