期刊名称：Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN：0027-8424
电子版ISSN：1091-6490
出版年度：2016
卷号：113
期号：48
页码：13696-13701
DOI：10.1073/pnas.1612903113
语种：English
出版社：The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要：SignificanceIntergroup conflicts are among the worlds most imminent problems, particularly with the shift of battlefields into the heart of civilian locations and the participation of increasingly younger adolescents in intergroup conflict. We found that Israeli and Palestinian adolescents reared in a climate of long-standing strife shut down the brains automatic response to outgroup pain. This neural modulation characterized a top-down process superimposed upon an automatic response to the pain of all and was sensitive to hostile behavior toward outgroup, uncompromising worldviews, and brain-to-brain synchrony among group members. Findings pinpoint adolescents sociocognitive top-down processes as targets for intervention. Adolescents participation in intergroup conflicts comprises an imminent global risk, and understanding its neural underpinnings may open new perspectives. We assessed Jewish-Israeli and Arab-Palestinian adolescents for brain response to the pain of ingroup/outgroup protagonists using magnetoencephalography (MEG), one-on-one positive and conflictual interactions with an outgroup member, attitudes toward the regional conflict, and oxytocin levels. A neural marker of ingroup bias emerged, expressed via alpha modulations in the somatosensory cortex (S1) that characterized an automatic response to the pain of all protagonists followed by rebound/enhancement to ingroup pain only. Adolescents hostile social interactions with outgroup members and uncompromising attitudes toward the conflict influenced this neural marker. Furthermore, higher oxytocin levels in the Jewish-Israeli majority and tighter brain-to-brain synchrony among group members in the Arab-Palestinian minority enhanced the neural ingroup bias. Findings suggest that in cases of intractable intergroup conflict, top-down control mechanisms may block the brains evolutionary-ancient resonance to outgroup pain, pinpointing adolescents interpersonal and sociocognitive processes as potential targets for intervention.
