A research article that is to be published in the Brain Research Bulletin is making the claim four major personality types – novelty seeking, harm avoidance, reward dependence, and persistence – are directly tied to the physical structure of the brain. Researchers say the brain differences can be measured by the size of specific regions of the brain that are associated with the four personality types.

Brain scans that measure differences in volume down to an accuracy of less than one cubic millimetre found, for instance, that people defined as novelty-seeking personalities had a structurally bigger area of the brain above the eye sockets, known as the inferior part of the frontal lobe.

People with smaller volumes of tissue in this region displayed higher levels of timidity, approval-seeking behaviours and a greater tendency to seek gratification from external sources such as food or drugs, said Professor Annalena Venneri of the University of Hull.

While my days of education in the world of Psychology are years behind me, I find this quite interesting as such a finding has the ability to impact the understanding of personal development.  It also has the ability to potentially alter discussions and views on metaphysical discussion (free well and what have you).

If tissue volume plays a role in determining what personality an individual has, what else does it play into?  Does size dictate what individuals will be prone to depression?  Substance abuse?  And how does the years of nurturing, or lack of, determine what kind of an adult a child will develop into?

The problem I have with the concept of Nature being the driving force in personal development is the lack of accountability in ones actions. Say it is fact the a part of the brain with more volume controls how shy someone is, and a person is shown to have this trait via testing, they have the potential to say “I can prove to you why I am this way and why I won’t change.”  It’s almost like a crutch – I don’t want to try to change, I don’t want to put myself in different situations because it won’t work…

So, ultimately, if volume does indicate potential personality types, can the personality be modified via exposure to other personality types and, if so, does the physical structure of the brain also change?

I guess this has the potential to be a case where size does matter.

So very interesting…

People who have a high family risk of developing depression had less brain matter on the right side of their brains on par with losses seen in Alzheimer’s disease, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

Brain scans showed a 28-percent thinning in the right cortex — the outer layer of the brain — in people who had a family history of depression compared with people who did not.

“The difference was so great that at first we almost didn’t believe it. But we checked and re-checked all of our data, and we looked for all possible alternative explanations, and still the difference was there,” said Dr. Bradley Peterson of Columbia University Medical Center and the New York State Psychiatric Institute.

Initial questions:

• Is it a thinning of the brain, as in continual, or is the condition simply an abnormality?
• Is there a way to reverse the process?
• What other conditions may this indicate?

What bothers me about this story is the very last line:

Peterson said the findings suggest medications used to treat attention problems such as stimulants might be useful in the treatment of depression in some patients.

Why is it always a turn to medication first? Anyway, interesting none the less.