Challenges to nonpolitical beliefs lit up regions of the brain involved in decision-making, while political challenges generated more activity in the emotional, fight-or-flight parts of the brain, as well as the Default Mode Network, a group of brain regions associated with creating a sense of self and with disengagement from the external world. In the face of political dissent, participants were more likely to withdraw from the external world and go into the internally focused parts of their brains that deal with their identity, as well as the parts of their brains that deal with danger,
...more
