At the 2023 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, the UCI Center for Neuropolitics held a Roundtable titled “Cognitive Decline and Political Leadership”. The session was chaired by Davin Phoenix and included Mark Fisher, Mark Mapstone, Shawn Rosenberg, Manijeh Berenji, and Darren Schreiber. All are from UCI except for Dr. Schreiber (University of Exeter). The session is available for viewing via the link below.

In one of the most extraordinary cases in the history of science, the mating calls of insects were mistaken for a “sonic weapon” that led to a major diplomatic row.  The lecture traces the origins of the syndrome, the response of the U.S. government, the results of scientific investigations and opinions, the evolution of the syndrome over time and similar phenomena that have occurred in the past.

The lecture is presented by Robert W. Baloh, MD who is a Professor of Neurology and Head and Neck Surgery (Emeritus) at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.  Author of 14 books and more than 350 articles in peer reviewed journals, he is a pioneer in the study of the vestibular system and clinical neurotology.   He has a recent book on Havana Syndrome co-authored with Robert Bartholomew, a sociologist from New Zealand.  Two other recent books are: “Medically Unexplained Symptoms” and “Exercise and the Brain”.

Emerging research examine functional connectivity (ie, synchrony or correlation of activity between multiple brain regions) has begun investigating the neural underpinnings that drive political ideology, political attitudes, and political actions. This lecture presentation explores the neurological roots of politics with a large sample, whole-brain analysis of functional connectivity across common fMRI tasks. Studies to date suggest that liberals and conservatives that can be identified with high accuracy using contemporary artificial intelligence methods. The data suggest that biological and neurological roots of political behavior run deeper than previously thought.