Abstract
In recent years, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has been widely used in studies that explored the personality-brain association. Researches on personality neuroscience have the potential to provide personality psychology with explanatory models—that is, why people differ from each other rather than how they differ from each other (DeYoung and Gray, 2009). As one of the most important dimensions of personality traits, extraversion is the most stable core and a universal component in personality theory. The aim of the present study was to employ a fully data-driven approach to study the brain mechanism of extraversion in a sample of 111 healthy adults. The Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) was used to measure the personality characteristics of all the subjects. We investigated whether the subjects can be grouped into highly homogeneous communities according to the characteristics of their intrinsic connectivity networks (ICNs). The resultant subjects communities and the representative characteristics of ICNs were then associated to personality concepts. Finally, we found one ICN (salience network) whose subject community profiles exhibited significant associations with Extraversion trait.
Highlights
As a core concept of psychology, the study of personality is the basis of the practical application of psychology
We found one intrinsic connectivity networks (ICNs), that is, salience network (SN) comprising bilateral insula and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) reflected a subject community profile associated with the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ)-Extraversion classification (Figure 2)
In the present study, following a new research strategy, we applied a systematic data-mining approach to investigate the characteristics of ICNs with a sample of 111 healthy subjects and found a reliable association between the salience network (SN) characteristic and EPQ-Extroversion classification
Summary
As a core concept of psychology, the study of personality is the basis of the practical application of psychology. A growing number of studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have explored the personality-brain association (Ryan et al, 2011; Wang et al, 2014; Wei et al, 2014; Cohn et al, 2015). Previous studies were usually driven by personality concepts formed by observer-dependent life experience and consensus (Kunisato et al, 2011; Wei et al, 2011). Whether the concepts that are not completely independent of the observer can objectively reflect the functional organization of the brain networks is questionable.
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