Abstract
Although cognitive and personality studies have observed gender differences in narcissism, the neural bases of these differences remain unknown. The current study combined the voxel-based morphometry and resting state functional connectivity (rsFC) analyses to explore the sex-specific neural basis of narcissistic personality. The VBM results showed that the relationship between narcissistic personality and regional gray matter volume (rGMV) differed between sexes. Narcissistic scores had a significant positive correlation with the rGMV of the right SPL in females, but not in males. Further analyses were conducted to investigate the sex-specific relationship between rsFC and narcissism, using right SPL/frontal eye fields (FEF) as the seed regions (key nodes of the dorsal attention network, DAN). Interestingly, decreased anticorrelations between the right SPL/FEF and areas of the precuneus and middle frontal gyrus (key nodes of the the default mode network, DMN) were associated with higher narcissistic personality scores in males, whereas females showed the opposite tendency. The findings indicate that gender differences in narcissism may be associated with differences in the intrinsic and dynamic interplay between the internally-directed DMN and the externally-directed TPN. Morphometry and functional connectivity analyses can enhance our understanding of the neural basis of sex-specific narcissism.
Highlights
The concept of narcissism has been much studied in psychology, its neural underpinnings remain unclear
Some studies have shown that the frontal lobes, including the middle frontal gyrus (MFG), medial prefrontal cortex (MPF), orbitofrontal cortex (OFC)[20], precuneus (PC), and anterior insula (AI) are involved in self-enhancement and self-evaluation[20,21]
Higher levels of narcissism were associated with a larger regional gray matter volume (rGMV) of the right SPL, and an increased anticorrelation between the SPL/ frontal eye fields (FEF) and the PC/MFG
Summary
The concept of narcissism has been much studied in psychology, its neural underpinnings remain unclear. Research suggests that grandiosity and the need for admiration stem from the same underlying roots, that is, distorted self-views and self-enhancement[11,19]. Previous research has suggested that the term narcissism might describe different phenomena in the two genders, which raises the possibility that narcissism in females and males might have different neural substrates. We hypothesized that sex-specific neural substrates in narcissism might be observed for the three basic dimensions of narcissism itself. The study combined structural imaging and resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) analysis to explore the sex-specific neural basis of narcissism. We predicted that the combination of the voxel-based morphometry and functional connectivity analyses would enhance our understanding of the neural basis of sex-specific narcissism
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