A new study finds that people with larger volumes in the prefrontal cortical brain regions may be more likely to have greater personality traits that can protect against emotional distress, such as optimism.
“In this study, we wanted to look at commonalities across brain regions and across personality traits that contribute to protective factors,” said Matt Moore, a Beckman Institute Graduate Fellow and co-author of the study.
“We targeted a number of regions in the prefrontal cortex, looking specifically at the volume of those regions using structural magnetic resonance imaging.
We did a confirmatory factor analysis, which is basically a statistical approach for testing whether there is a common factor underlying the observed measurements.”.
The researchers hope to identify these brain regions along with specific personality traits in order to create ways for individuals to learn how to combat anxiety and depression.
“This study gives us the coordinates of the brain regions that are important as well as some traits that are important,” Moore said.
Brain Volume May Be Tied to Emotionally Protective Traits. »
