Brain scans can identify the most sociable people
People who value the company of others most have denser grey matter in two brain areasIt could be a taste of the future for job interviews and the beginning of the end for curmudgeonly work colleagues.Scientists at Cambridge University have used medical scanners to pinpoint brain features that identify someone as being a likeable "people person" or a wallflower.The scans revealed that people who most value the company of others have, on average, more dense grey matter in two areas of the brain known as the orbitofrontal cortex and the ventral striatum.These brain regions are involved in what scientists call "reward circuits" for some of our most basic pleasures, such as sweet food and sex.Graham Murray, a psychiatrist who led the study, said the findings may provide clues to how humans came to be sociable beings. The brain may first have evolved to give us pleasurable sensations from eating and...
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