People with a busy social life ‘have bigger amygdala’
It certainly seems that some people tend to be more outgoing than others. Whether this is because of nature or because of nurture has previously been hard to say. Are people born being more socially outgoing or do they become more socially outgoing because of their friends and associates?
Recently scientists have made a breakthrough showing that predisposition towards social activity is likely. In a recent study conducted taking 58 average people of varying ages and brain sizes found that people with larger social networks who also tend to be much more socially active also have a statistically significant larger amygdala then the less socially active people in the test.
Of course this could lead to a “chicken and the egg question.” After all, is the Amygdala in these individuals larger because they exercise this section of the brain by being more socially active? Or could it be simply that they are more socially active because of the larger Amygdala. What came first social activity or enlarged Amygdala.
The amygdala is well-known to be involved with emotional and mental functions of the brain. Because of this “emotional” aspect of the Amygdala it should not be a complete surprise that a larger amygdala would affect an increase social activity.
This most recent experiment was carried out by a team from Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. The researchers gave the test subjects involved series of questions about their social activities before any brain scans. From the results of these tests they were able to separate the subjects into more socially active and less socially active categories. After the series of questions the subjects were all subjected to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) tests to measure the strength, size and activity of parts of their brains. Nearly all test subjects that had previously been categorized as socially active were also shown to have larger Amygdala’s.
The scientists stated that, “We found that amygdala volume correlates with the size and complexity of social networks in adult humans. These findings indicate that the amygdala is important in social behavior.”
This finding gives proof to make people’s beliefs that the amygdala can control the social aspect of a person’s personality. But once again you must pause to think about the chicken and the egg. Do these individuals have larger Amygdala’s because they exercise them by being more socially active or are they more socially active because they have larger Amygdalas? Only time, and science, will tell.
