Brain Health of Political Candidates

In his lectures, neuropsychiatrist Daniel Amen often says that, before one of his children marries, he wants to examine a brain scan of the spousal candidate. Why? Because brain deficits aren’t always obvious. Sometimes mental illness reveals itself only over time, and with stress. In fact, we often initially misperceive a person’s brain deficits as positive qualities. Much to our peril.

For example, consider the “decisive decision-maker.” Golly, you think to yourself, someone so cocksure and confident must know the score, right? You know that you could never act so confident unless you had the goods, right?

But over time you’re horrified to see the truth (if you allow yourself): “Decisiveness” isn’t a choice for this person; he or she is simply too impulsive, overconfident, uninformed, and rigid to stop and consider wiser options. Disastrous consequences confirm this.

In an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times last year, Amen, author of the popular book and PBS special Change Your Brain, Change Your Life, poses a very sane idea: We should carefully scrutinize the mental health not just of our potential mates but also of presidential candidates. After all, we expect to know their physical health status, and the brain is a physical organ — in fact, the most vulnerable organ of all.

With presidential elections just around the corner, it seems a timely topic.

Dr. Amen writes:
What do Rudy Giuliani’s messy personal life, John McCain’s temper and Hillary Clinton’s inability to seem authentic have in common? Maybe nothing. They may be just overblown issues in the otherwise normal lives of candidates under the political microscope.

Such symptoms, however, may mean a lot — such as evidence of underlying brain dysfunction.

Sometimes people with messy personal lives have low prefrontal cortex activity associated with poor judgment; sometimes people with temper problems have brain damage and impulse control problems; sometimes people who struggle with authenticity have trouble really seeing things from someone else’s perspective.

Follow this link to read the rest of the column: Los Angeles Times, Dec. 5 2007: “Getting Inside Their Heads….Really Inside”