Our research demonstrates that there is a fundamental tension between the brain areas that we use to understand the experiential viewpoint of others and the brain areas we use for emotionally disengaged analytic thinking, focused visual attention, and motor planning. In general, when we turn on one of these networks of brain regions, then we suppress activity in the other.

This is the first time I have heard this finding, but definitely consistent with the way people react when threatened. Another reminder that apparently ' civilised' people can easily turn to violence when our survival instincts are triggered.