When you see somebody you hate, whether it's an evil ex or a mean colleague, your brain undergoes a rather unexpected transformation. A new study published in PLoS One today reveals that hatred isn't the blind, irrational emotion it might seem. In fact, hate activates the brain regions associated with higher reason and the ability to predict what other people will do.
British neuroscientists did fMRI brain scans of subjects while they looked at pictures of people they claimed to hate. As a baseline, they also showed them pictures of people they felt neutrally about. Not surprisingly, hatred activated the regions of the brain associated with aggression and the motor regions that would translate this aggression into action. And given that love often turns into hate, it's not too surprising that hatred also activates two brain regions, the putamen and the insula, associated with passionate, romantic love.
What is surprising is the degree to which hatred is associated with logic and planning. The researchers write in their paper:
What seems not to be in doubt is that this cortical zone involves the premotor cortex, a zone that has been implicated in the preparation of motor planning and its execution. We hypothesize that the sight of a hated person mobilizes the motor system for the possibility of attack or defense. In addition, the involvement of the frontal pole consider to be critical in predicting the action of others, arguably an important feature when confronted by a hated person . . . it is more likely that in the context of hate the hater may want to exercise judgment in calculating moves to harm, injure or otherwise extract revenge.
