What Jihadi Brain Scans Tell Us


Published in Frontiers in Psychology and Royal Society Publishing, the MRI study looked at “the underlying neural and behavioral relationships between sacred values, violent extremism, and social exclusion” among a group of 535 young men from European Muslim communities around Barcelona, Spain. The pool was comprised of first and second generation young men from the Moroccan diaspora.

The study found among jihadis there is less deliberation in making a decision to act when the behavior trigger is a sacred value (which is something often seen in honor killings for example). However, the study also found that the part of the brain linked to deliberation lit up if the individual’s peer group showed hesitation or reserve to default into violence behavior.

Significantly, the MRI results also showed that behavioral and neural responses to sacred value processing (including a willingness to fight and die) is not exclusive to this component. Social exclusion can have the same impact among young and vulnerable individuals.
https://clarionproject.org/what-jiha...scans-tell-us/