Go to your Facebook (its probably already open in another tab) and look at how many friends you have. Would you believe that neuroscientists could use that number to estimate the size and connectivity of certain brain areas? Recent studies coming out of the UK would suggest that the answer to that question is yes!
Researchers at University College London have identified areas of the brain that are larger in those who have more Facebook friends. The brain areas in question are the amygdala, which we all already know is involved with emotion, and the superior temporal sulcus. This begs the question: Does having more friends increase the size and connectivity of these areas or are people who have larger superior temporal sulci and amygdalae more social? Luckily, the smart people at Oxford have already looked into it. Using monkeys they were able to conclude that the more monkeys an individual knew, the bigger these brain areas were. Additionally, they determined that the more popular monkeys and the monkeys who here higher in social status also showed enlarged brain areas. So what does this all mean? It suggests that these areas may be used for rudimentary social calculation in monkeys and have evolved to do more complex social processing in humans. It opens the door to further research into areas of the brain involved with social processing.
If anyone finds this interesting or has something to add feel free to comment.
Read the article at http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=your-brain-on-facebook
I believe that this study has found significant findings but I do not entirely believe everything that they have found. I mean Snooki from the Jersey Shore probably has more facebook friends than me but I doubt that her neural network has expanded beyond mine or my classmates. I wonder if they could compare these findings to other above average persons who do not have a facebook. I do believe our brain identifies specific famous people who are always on television because it is apart of our social entertainment. I would like to learn more about the findings and the research behind them.
ReplyDeleteMorgan, if I may say so — I highly doubt that this article or blog post are trying to imply that greater neural connectivity = intelligence (as in the example with Snooki) and it's not necessarily about identifying or relating to famous individuals, rather it sounds like what this article alluding to is that social interactions could cause an increase in connectivity in the aforementioned areas.
ReplyDeleteI'm reading an interesting book on intelligence. It was written by Jeff Dawkins, founder of the Palm Pilot family of products. He's a computer scientist turned neuroscientist and in his book I'm reading "On Intelligence" he begins by challenging the idea of creating artificial neural networks as a way to study intelligence because they are NOT representative of that component of the brain.