Neuroscience And Politics Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

The application of neuroscience to politics centers around the question of what political issues can best be addressed with biological, genetic, or cognitive neural approaches. Some common areas of investigation include sources of cooperation and aggression, the nature of altruism and punishment, and the potential heritability of important political and social preferences, including ideology. The field of cognitive neuroscience is primarily concerned with elucidating the physiological and neural architecture and functioning of the human brain. These processes include control over basic physical processes, such as breathing, as well as emotional responses centered in the limbic system, and more abstract cognitive processes involving memory, learning, language, and other analytic tasks. Better understanding of these processes can help inform specific political processes such as cooperation or status competition as well as larger questions such as how humans developed shared political and social environments.

Several research techniques exist in neuroscience. These include technologies such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), electroencephalography (EEG), and positron emission tomography (PET) scans. Advances in behavioral genetics and research into the action of hormones have also informed this area. Much of this research finds theoretical unity and synthesis through evolutionary models and approaches to human development and behavior.

A great deal of work has been done using fMRI technology to map the geography of the human brain. This technology allows a physical probe of living neural brain tissue, but the measures themselves actually provide an indirect measure of neural activity. Most MRI studies depend on analysis of the BOLD (blood oxygenation level dependent) signal. Findings rest on the assumption that brain activity consumes oxygen, and changes in oxygen level in the blood can therefore signal neural activity. Functional MRIs can provide spatial resolution within about three to six millimeters, so they provide a valuable map of brain activity. They do not, however, provide good temporal resolution. Electrical signals, such as those provided by EEG technology, provide vastly superior temporal information, but inferior spatial orientation, so a combination of MRI and EEG technology is becoming increasingly common. In MRI research, central research strategies include attempts to correlate brain activity with various personality trait variables or political attitudes in order to discern where in the brain a certain decision may take place. For example, if some activity arouses activity in the amygdala, the part of the brain associated with emotional processing in previous studies, researchers might then infer that the given task engages some affective process. For political applications, the problem with MRI technology is that the number of subjects tends to be low, and subjects often repeat tasks, raising concerns about generalization and external validity. But such technology can be used to study the relationship between cognitive and affective processes in strategic voting and political party identification, for example, as well as social processes such as trust and cooperation. However, MRI remains a very expensive technology.

Research in behavioral genetics offers another avenue of potential interest for political scientists. Brains are created and operated by genes interacting with environmental forces. Genes activate continually in the human body, as RNA (ribonucleic acid) reads DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) to regulate a wide variety of activity. Such processes, for example, control the number of receptors an individual has for various hormones. Human behavior is set to turn on and turn off under certain conditions, the most notably universal of which is puberty, but such expression remains subject to reprogramming, including delay, based on environmental circumstances. The classic method of study in genetic research concentrates on twin studies, which examine the differences between identical (monozygotic) and fraternal (dizygotic) siblings. Twin methodology provides a natural experiment by allowing researchers to determine how much of behavior derives from genetic differences, shared environment, and unshared environment.

More recent advances in molecular biology such as PCR (polymerase chain reaction) technology, whereby a short strand of DNA can be replicated, allow researchers to take DNA from a subject using a cheek swab or a rooted hair sample. Attempts can then be made to correlate particular aspects of DNA with behavioral tendencies. As in all genetic studies, the central question revolves around the impact of particular genes on individual behavior. Hormonal studies can supplement such work as well, to examine individual differences in the number of brain receptor sites as well as differences in actual blood levels of particular chemicals, such as testosterone, oxytocin, or vasopressin.

Much of the work in the emerging area of neuropolitics involves the use of twin studies, experiments involving genetic markers, physiological or hormonal measures, and the use of fMRI technology to explore the nature of political and religious affiliation, ideology, various aspects of voting, and issues related to cooperation and aggression.

Bibliography:

Fowler, James, Laura A. Baker, and Christopher T. Dawes. “Genetic Variation in Political Participation.” American Political Science Review 102, no. 2 (2008): 233–248.
Hatemi, Peter K., John Hibbing, John Alford, Nicholas Martin, and Lindon Eaves. “Is There a ‘Party’ in Your Genes?” Political Research Quarterly 62, no. 3 (September 2009): 584–600.
McDermott, R., D.Tingley, J. Cowden, G. Frazzetto, and D. Johnson. “Monoamine Oxidase A Gene (MAOA) Predicts Behavioral Aggression Following Provocation.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106, no. 7 (2009): 2118–2123.

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