Revealed: New method of brainwash

 Scientist have found a way to brainwash people by changing their attitudes towards God and immigrants.The bizarre experiment weakened both belief in God and aversion to immigrants by around a third.They were able to radically alter religious perceptions and prejudices by beaming magnetic energy into the brain.Researchers safely shut down certain groups of neurons in the brains of volunteers.They targeted a region known as the posterior medial frontal cortex a few inches up from the forehead - that is associated with detecting and responding to problems.They then asked the 30 participants – all of whom held religious convictions to rate their belief in God, angels, heaven, the devil and hell before confronting them with the thought of death.

 They were then asked to detail their emotional responses.“As expected, we found that when we experimentally turned down the posterior medial frontal cortex, people were less inclined to reach for comforting religious ideas despite having been reminded of death.”Dr Keise Izuma, from the University of York, said: “We decided to remind people of death because previous research has shown that people turn to religion for comfort in the face of death.The American participants were then shown two essays supposedly written by newly arrived immigrants. One was highly complementary to the US and the other extremely critical.Dr Izuma said: “When we disrupted the brain region that usually helps detect and respond to threats, we saw a less negative, less ideologically motivated reaction to the critical author and his opinions.

”The experiment which relied on a technique called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) reduced volunteers’ belief in God by 32.8% and left them 28.5% more positive about immigrants.It concluded that brains use the same basic mental machinery to tackle physical problems – like trying to negotiate a fallen tree in our path as they do to find solace in religion or resolve issues related to immigration.The study was designed to shed light on the way the brain resolves ideological problems.Lead author Dr Colin Holbrook, from the University of California at Los Angeles, said more research is needed to understand exactly how and why religious beliefs and prejudices are reduced using TMS.The research was published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.
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