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31 Jan | 2019

UAB and IMIM publish the results of a study which used BBRC’s MRI

A neuroimaging study led by researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM), in collaboration with other international institutions, explored the neural and behavioural relationships between sacred values, violent extremism and social exclusion in a group of young Moroccan men living and schooled in Catalonia and vulnerable to radicalisation. The cerebral images of the study were obtained in the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scanner of the Barcelonaβeta Brain Research Center (BBRC). 

Sacred values are those perceived as non-negotiable, those which must be upheld at all costs. They also contain an identity component related to perceiving the person as a member of their reference group.

The study, published in Frontiers of Psychology, examined the neural substrate of sacred values in relation to ideological adherence, as well as those related to religious or national/group identity. This neural activity associated with the will to fight and die defending sacred values, as well as the effects social exclusion has over this activity, occurs in the left inferior frontal gyrus, a region previously associated with sacred values and rule retrieval.

The study used neuroimaging to confirm the relationship between this region of the brain with the will to fight and die for these values. “Alongside other studies, these findings suggest that sacred values are processed through an ethical reasoning based on duty ('what must be done') and not an evaluation of costs and benefits, while nonsacred values are more flexible and subject to negotiation”, says research coordinator and UAB and IMIM researcher Òscar Vilarroya.

For more information, read the news published by the UAB. 

About BBRC’s Neuroimaging Platform 

The research center of the Pasqual Maragall Foundation, BBRC, provides to the scientific community a personalized integral service for the execution of research studies that require the acquisition, management and processing of brain images by magnetic resonance.

For more information, check out the web page of the Neuroimaging Platform or contact its manager, Marc Colomé (mcolome@fpmaragall.org).