If your social life leaves something to be desired, it might be your brain structure that’s to blame.
A ‘Facebook feature’ deep in the temporal lobe governs the number of friends you are likely to make, scientists have found.
The amygdala, a small almond-shaped structure, has for some time been linked to empathy and fear responses.
But a study suggests that the larger the amygdala, the wider and more complex is its owner’s network of friends and colleagues.
Volunteers aged between 19 to 83 were asked to complete questionnaires which measured how many regular social contacts they had, and in how many different groups.
Magnetic resonance imaging scans found a positive link between big amygdalas and the richest social lives. Professor Lisa Barrett, a psychologist at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, reported the findings in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
She said they were consistent with the social brain theory, which suggests the human amygdala evolved to deal with an increasingly complex social world.
Other studies of primates have shown that those living in larger groups tend to have larger amygdalas. The findings was published in a new study in Nature Neuroscience.
Dr Lisa Barrett, Professor of Psychology at Northeastern University, who took part in the research, said the amygdala got bigger to cope with mankinds more hectic social life.
She added: Further research is in progress to try to understand more about how the amygdala and other brain regions are involved in social behaviour in humans.
Her colleague Dr Bradford Dickerson, an associate Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School said: This link between amygdala size and social network size and complexity was observed for both older and younger individuals and for both men and women.
Recently US scientists reported on the case of a woman whose amygdala had been destroyed by a medical condition.
As a result the 44-year-old mother of three felt no fear and constantly put herself in danger. Over the years she had been threatened with a knife, held at gunpoint and assaulted.
如果你的社交生活不尽人意，那可能得怪你的大脑结构。
科学家们发现，大脑颞叶深处的交际特征决定了你可能交到的朋友个数。
人们一度认为杏仁核与同理心和恐惧反应有关。杏仁核是大脑内一个小的杏仁状组织。
但是一项研究显示，一个人的杏仁核越大，他的朋友圈和同事圈就越大越复杂。
参与该研究的志愿者年龄介于19岁到83岁之间，研究者请他们填写调查问卷，以得出他们经常联系的朋友个数以及有多少种不同类别的朋友。
磁共振成像扫描显示，杏仁核的大小与社交生活的丰富程度成正比。美国东北大学的心理学家丽莎•贝瑞特教授在《自然神经科学》杂志上发表了以上调查结果。东北大学位于马萨诸塞州波士顿市。
贝瑞特教授说调查结果与社会脑理论相符，该理论认为人类杏仁核的进化是为了应对愈来愈复杂的社交世界。
其他对灵长类动物的研究发现，群居动物的杏仁核要更大一些。这些研究成果发表在《自然神经科学》的一项新研究报告中。
东北大学的心理学教授丽莎•贝瑞特博士参与了这项课题，她说人类的杏仁核变大是为了应付日益繁忙的社交生活。
她接着说：我们目前正在进行更深层次的研究，来进一步了解杏仁核和其他脑部区域如何影响人类的社会行为。
她的同事布拉德福德•狄克生博士说：我们观察了人们的杏仁核大小与社交圈大小和复杂程度之间的关系。我们的观察对象有老有少，有男有女。狄克生博士是哈佛大学医学院的神经病学副教授。
美国科学家们观察了一位因病导致杏仁核受损的妇女，最近他们就观察结果作了报告。
报告显示，这位已经是三个孩子母亲的44岁的女人从来感觉不到恐惧，并经常将自己置于危险的境地。这些年来，她遭受过匕首威胁，被人拿枪指过头，还曾经惨遭殴打。
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