May 27 2009
The Anatomy of Extroversion
Researcher in a crow’s nest provided by science have made a new discovery. Rather than crying, Land-ho! maybe they could bellow, Personality trait, brain physiology correspondance-ho!
Because that’s what the scientists at the University of Cambridge found.
They found that the greater the concentration of tissue in the orbitofrontal cortex (the outer strip of the brain just above the eyes), and in the ventral striatum (a deep structure in the centre of the brain), the higher they tended to score on the social reward dependence measure.
In case it isn’t obvious, extroverts score higher on the social reward dependence measure. Thus, ipso facto, extroversion is a brain disorder.
No, that’s not what it means. Just kidding. It strongly suggests that how we feel, and think and behave, is controlled by our brains and is reflected in the structure of brains themselves. While this single piece to the human-psychology puzzle is not terribly surprising, the pieces are adding up. And that is exciting. What I see so far: the seat of the totality of who we are, what we do, and our experience of the world/universe is not the soul, but the brain.
