Weekly Review: Stressed Brains Become Politically Radical, Light to Remove Stress, Mindfulness Protects Against Digital Work Stress

A round up of recently published research on the brain and behaviour

There is a lot of work on the brain and stress, it is important but one piece of research just out really caught my eye — that of stressed out brains and political radicalism. Umm worrying — but on the good news side there are also a bunch of new potential therapies for stress and depression that include novel things such as light.

But let’s start with that dramatic assertion that stressed-out brains become politically radical.

Politically Radicalised Brains

In the current political climate it is interesting to explore some of the roots of various forms of radicalism. A group of researchers from Hungary and France (Dezső Németh is the lead author) have just published a paper outlining their hypothesis on what they call Threat-based Neural Switch Theory.

So this is only a hypothesis at the moment but is based on solid evidence of how the brain works and various mechanisms in the brain, psychology and society.