| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Therion Ware" |
| Date: |
22 Jan 2007 01:57:22 AM |
| Object: |
'Altruistic' brain region found |
IT Says here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6278907.stm
'Altruistic' brain region found
Scientists say they have found the part of the brain that predicts
whether a person will be selfish or an altruist.
Altruism - the tendency to help others without obvious benefit to
oneself - appears to be linked to an area called the posterior
superior temporal sulcus.
Using brain scans, the US investigators found this region related to a
person's real-life unselfish behaviour.
The Duke University Medical Center study on 45 volunteers is published
in Nature Neuroscience.
Selfless tendencies
The participants were asked to disclose how often they engaged in
different helping behaviours, such as doing charity work, and were
also asked to play a computer game designed to measure altruism.
The study authors say their work could have important implications.
They are now exploring ways to study the development of this brain
region in early life and believe such information may help determine
how altruistic tendencies are established.
Researcher Dr Scott Huettel explained: "Although understanding the
function of this brain region may not necessarily identify what drives
people like Mother Theresa, it may give clues to the origins of
important social behaviours like altruism."
Reciprocal helping
Dr George Fieldman, member of the British Psychological Society and
principal lecturer in psychology at Buckinghamshire Chilterns
University College, said it was conceivable that there would be a
region of the brain involved with altruism.
He added: "If you can educate from an early stage to be more
altruistic that would be good for the community, and if you could also
show that had an impact on brain development that would be very
interesting."
He said true altruism was a rare or even intangible thing.
"Altruism is usually reciprocal - you do something for someone and you
expect something back ultimately.
"The other types are kin altruism, giving to ones relatives, and being
cheated or cuckolded."
He said it would be interesting to study people at the extremes of
altruism and selfishness and see if their brains differed
significantly.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/health/6278907.stm
Published: 2007/01/22 00:26:32 GMT
© BBC MMVII
--
"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you".
attrib: Pauline Réage.
http://www.city-of-dis.com/p_q.asp?I1=69597&I2=69121
The begining...
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