Brain Scans Predict Voting Behaviour

Thought you might find this New Scientist report interesting:

Political affiliation could be all in the brain

A brain scan might one day predict your voting patterns. That is the implication of a study that found different brain activity among liberals and conservatives asked to carry out a simple button-pushing test. The study implies that our political diversity may be the result of neurological differences.

Researchers have long known that conservatives and liberals score differently in psychological profiling tests. Now they are beginning to gather evidence about why this might be...

Brain recordings taken using electroencephalogram (EEG) technology showed that liberals had twice as much activity in a deep region called the anterior cingulate cortex. This area of the brain is thought to act as a mental brake by helping the mind recognize "no-go" situations where it must refrain from the usual course of action.

The new findings are "interesting and provocative" because they could perhaps help enable researchers to predict a person's voting behaviour based on brain scans.

If you think that's just an irrelevant bit of fun, check out Tony Blair's Minority Report!