The Amygdala and Politics

Emotions play a central role in social interactions and associations, and they are regulated by multiple regions of the human brain. In this review, we focus primarily, almost exclusively, on the amygdala, highlighting functional and structural changes related to behavioral interactions that may occur within diverse social groups, including families, cultural associations, and political organizations, each typically structured around leaders and followers. More specifically, we examine political parties in democratic societies, after first outlining how the relationship between brain structure, particularly the amygdala, and behavior has evolved from non-human primates to humans, and how structural and behavioral changes may arise through aging or disease.