Results of the study: Amodio, D et al:

Neurocognitive correlates of liberalism and conservatism. Nat Neurosci. 2007 Oct;10(10):1246 – 7.

The study by Amodio et al. (2007) examined the neurocognitive correlates of liberalism and conservatism. The researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure the participants' brain activity as they performed various cognitive tasks.

The results showed that liberalism was associated with greater activation of the anterior cingulate cortex, a brain region associated with conflict monitoring and error detection. Conservatism, on the other hand, was associated with greater activation of the right amygdala, a brain region associated with processing threats and fear responses.

The study suggests that political beliefs correlate with differences in brain activity and that these differences may be due to specific neurocognitive processes.