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Neuroscientific Techniques
Scientist have just recently been able to study racial interactions from a neuroscience standpoint within the past few decades due to the rise in new neurological technologies. Facial recognition tests are used to replicate racial interactions. There are three major neurological techniques used to measure the brains response to these simulated racial interactions.

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Measures the brain activity through measuring the blood oxygen level in the brain. Gives insight into which regions of the brain are active during a certain event.

Event-Related Potentials
Measures brain activity through measuring electrical impulses by electrodes on the head. Gives insight in rapid changes in the brain.

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation
Measures the response of a region of the brain once activated through magnetism. Gives insight into causality of occurrences and gives specific insight into what brain regions are doing.

Cross-Race Effect
Many studies researching racial interactions analyze the Cross-race effect. This is a bias or tendency for people to be more familiar with a face of a similar race compared to members of another race. This is often characterized by the saying, "They all look alike to me." Studies have looked at the brain to try to understand why this phenomena occurs.

Face Recognition

 * FFA is heavily involved in facial recognition.
 * Determination of race occurs very quickly.
 * The FFA is activated more while viewing other race faces. The FFA isn't the only part associated in facial recognition. The whole VT cortex is involved in face recognition.
 * As time progresses, the brain activation increases to differ between viewing own race and other race faces.

Memory

 * We use hippocampus to encode memories into the parietal lobe. To retrieve memory, we reactivate the parietal. If extra searching is needed, we use the frontal lobe.
 * Bottom-up and top-down processing. We use bottom-up processing with own race faces, and top-down processing with other race faces.
 * Encoding. In encoding, other race faces caused more brain activity.
 * Retrieval. In retrieval processes, other race faces required more brain activity. More activation of the the frontal lobe.

Theories of Origin
There are two main theories that attempt to explain the origin of the cross-race effect.
 * Perceptual expertise hypothesis. The cross-race effect is due to lack of exposure to other races.
 * Socio-cognitive hypothesis. The cross-race effect is due to societal beliefs.
 * Blend of the two. There's research showing a blend of the two theories.

Racism
Within racial interactions, the cross-race effect is not always the only phenomena, but also, stereotyping occurs of other races. Many studies have looked into neuroscience behind stereotyping other races. Several brain regions have been found to be involved in stereotyping and controlling these stereotypes.

Amygdala
The amygdala is associated with fear conditioning. This has been a popular area of study in the brain because historically American racial discrimination is associated with fear and lack of trust in another race. In multiple studies, there is an association between viewing out-group faces and greater activation of the amygdala compared to viewing in-group faces, but there are many inconsistencies found. It is believed that the variability in amygdala activation is due to difference in opinions and cultural exposure.

Anterior Cingulate Cortex
The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is associated with detecting conflict and determining how to resolve that conflict. This is believed to play a part in the controversy in one’s mind over personal racial biases and culturally equality norms. ACC activation is shown to increase when there’s an automatic negative response to an out-group, as shown in amygdala activation. The ACC is used to recognize the conflict between cultural expectations and the automatic negative response, and is the first step in expressing racial attitudes.

Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
The Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) works in conjunction with the ACC, and acts as the overseer of the reaction to the racial conflict. The DLPFC also interacts with the amygdala by suppressing it to resolve the conflict. It is shown that the DLPFC function is determined by internal beliefs and awareness of societal attitudes.

Corrections
Racism can be controlled. Current studies in positive psychology have shown that denial of racial differences just leads to more racial stereotyping. However, the best way to control racism is to acknowledge racial differences, but to accept equality.

Anatomical Differences
There has been limited research on actual neurological differences among ethnic groups. This is believed to be due to low participation in experiments by minority groups. However, some research has shown some biological differences in brain anatomy among ethnic groups. There have been observed morphological differences between Caucasian and Chinese individuals in the frontal, parietal, and temporal brain regions. Most of these differences are believed to be due to environmental differences, such as differences in language development. It is observed that African Americans have a larger orbitofrontal cortex than Caucasians.  The biological significance of these findings is unclear, but these findings are important for neurological studies that will investigate minority groups.