A new study finds that people with larger volumes in the prefrontal cortical brain regions may be more likely to have greater personality traits that can protect against emotional distress, such as optimism.

For the study, researchers at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois looked at a sample of 85 healthy college students to see how a number of personality traits can protect a person’s brain against symptoms of emotional distress, particularly depression and anxiety.

“In this study, we wanted to look at commonalities across brain regions and across personality traits that contribute to protective factors,” said Matt Moore, a Beckman Institute Graduate Fellow and co-author of the study.

“We targeted a number of regions in the prefrontal cortex, looking specifically at the volume of those regions using structural magnetic resonance imaging. We did a confirmatory factor analysis, which is basically a statistical approach for testing whether there is a common factor underlying the observed measurements.”

In order to examine resiliency in young adults, previous studies have looked at the relationship between specific brain regions and certain personality traits, such as optimism, positive affect, and cognitive reappraisal, all of which factor into how an individual copes with emotional challenges.

“We knew from the clinical literature that there are relationships between brain volume and certain personality traits,” said Dr. Sanda Dolcos, a research scientist in psychology, and one of the study’s authors. “Lower brain volume in certain areas is associated with increased anxiety.”

Coupled with questionnaires that identified the participants’ personality traits, the structural information of the prefrontal cortical regions provided evidence that there are common factors in brain structure and personality that can help provide adaptive behavior in order to avoid negative emotions.

“In a statistical model, we extracted these factors, one at the brain level, one at the personality level, and we found that if you have larger volume in this set of brain regions, you had higher levels of these protective personality traits,” Moore said.

The researchers hope to identify these brain regions along with specific personality traits in order to create ways for individuals to learn how to combat anxiety and depression.

“We are interested in cognitive-behavioral intervention,” Dolcos said. “We have identified a resilience factor, which relates to detailed components in the prefrontal cortex, so cognitive interventions would target those brain areas.”

The fact that brain volume can change due to the development of skills that might alter traits such as optimism indicates that brain training is one way to buffer against emotional distress.

“People are not necessarily aware of how plastic the brain is,” Dolcos said. “We can change the volume of the brain through experience and training. I teach brain and cognition, and students are so empowered at the end of the course because they realize that they are in charge.”

“It means that we can work on developing new skills, for instance, new emotion regulation strategies that have a more positive approach, and can actually impact the brain.”

“This study gives us the coordinates of the brain regions that are important as well as some traits that are important,” Moore said. “As the next step, we can then try and engage this plasticity at each of these levels and then train against a negative outcome.”

The study is published in the journal Personality Neuroscience.

Source: Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology

Brain Volume May Be Tied to Emotionally Protective Traits