Your Brain Structure Depends on How Trusting You Are of Others

How trusting are you? It may depend on the circuits in your brain. Scientists have found that there are differences in brain structure depending on how trusting you are of others.

"There are conditions, like autism, that are characterized by deficits in being able to process the world socially, one of which is the ability to trust people," said Brian Haas, one of the researchers, in a news release. "Here we have converging evidence that these brain regions are important for trust; and if we can understand how these differences relate to specific social processes, then we may be able to develop more targeted treatment techniques for people who have deficits in social cognition."

In this latest study, the researchers used two measures to determine the trust levels in 82 participants. The volunteers filled out a self-reported questionnaire about their tendency to trust others. Then, they were shown pictures of faces with neutral facial expressions and asked to evaluate how trustworthy they found each person in the picture.

After these tests, the scientists then took MRI scans of the participants' brains to see how brain structure was associated with how trusting people were of others. In the end, they found differences in two areas of the brain.

"The most important finding was that the grey matter volume was greater in the ventral medial prefrontal cortex, which is the brain region that serves to evaluate social rewards, in people that tended to be more trusting of others," said Haas. "Another finding that we observed was for a brain region called the amygdala. The volume of this area of the brain, which codes for emotional saliency, was greater in those that were both most trusting and least trusting of others. If something is emotionally important to us, the amygdala helps us to code and remember it."

The findings reveal a bit more about how brain structure can influence how trusting a person is of others. This could help with conditions, such as autism. In addition, future studies may focus on how trust can be improved and whether the brain is malleable.

The findings are published in the journal NeuroImage.

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