Hot Updates and Education Portal: University of California

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 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.<br />
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 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.<br />
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”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.<br />
<a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/6691814/Boffins-brainwash-to-change-attitude-towards-immigrants.html">CREDIT </a>