Amygdala Volume and Social Network Size in Humans

We found that amygdala volume correlates with the size and complexity of social networks in adult humans. An exploratory analysis of subcortical structures did not find strong evidence for similar relationships with any other structure, but there were associations between social network variables and cortical thickness in three cortical areas, two of them with amygdala connectivity. These findings indicate that the amygdala is important in social behavior.

[1]  R. Barton.  Visual specialization and brain evolution in primates , 1998, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences.

[2]  N. Minshew,et al.  MRI volumes of amygdala and hippocampus in non–mentally retarded autistic adolescents and adults , 1999, Neurology.

[3]  Robin I. M. Dunbar.  Social Brain Hypothesis , 1998, Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science.

[4]  D. Amaral,et al.  The Amygdala Is Enlarged in Children But Not Adolescents with Autism; the Hippocampus Is Enlarged at All Ages , 2004, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[5]  A. Dale,et al.  High‐resolution intersubject averaging and a coordinate system for the cortical surface , 1999, Human brain mapping.

[6]  D. Russell,et al.  Social and emotional loneliness: an examination of Weiss's typology of loneliness. , 1984, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[7]  André J. W. van der Kouwe,et al.  Detection of cortical thickness correlates of cognitive performance: Reliability across MRI scan sessions, scanners, and field strengths , 2008, NeuroImage.

[8]  Michael Davis,et al.  The amygdala: vigilance and emotion , 2001, Molecular Psychiatry.

[9]  Alexander Todorov,et al.  Nonlinear Amygdala Response to Face Trustworthiness: Contributions of High and Low Spatial Frequency Information , 2009, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[10]  Gilles Pourtois,et al.  View-independent coding of face identity in frontal and temporal cortices is modulated by familiarity: an event-related fMRI study , 2005, NeuroImage.

[11]  Nicole Barger,et al.  A comparative volumetric analysis of the amygdaloid complex and basolateral division in the human and ape brain. , 2007, American journal of physical anthropology.

[12]  R. Adolphs,et al.  The social brain: neural basis of social knowledge. , 2009, Annual review of psychology.

[13]  R. Barton,et al.  Amygdala size and hypothalamus size predict social play frequency in nonhuman primates: a comparative analysis using independent contrasts. , 2006, Journal of comparative psychology.

[14]  Nikos Makris,et al.  Adjustment for whole brain and cranial size in volumetric brain studies: a review of common adjustment factors and statistical methods. , 2006, Harvard review of psychiatry.

[15]  Streichenwein Sm,et al.  Am J Psychiatry , 1996 .

[16]  C. Lord,et al.  Amygdala Enlargement in Toddlers with Autism Related to Severity of Social and Communication Impairments , 2009, Biological Psychiatry.

[17]  N Makris,et al.  Evidence for more widespread cerebral pathology in early HD , 2003, Neurology.

[18]  Guido Gerig,et al.  Longitudinal study of amygdala volume and joint attention in 2- to 4-year-old children with autism. , 2009, Archives of general psychiatry.

[19]  Anders M. Dale,et al.  Reliability of MRI-derived measurements of human cerebral cortical thickness: The effects of field strength, scanner upgrade and manufacturer , 2006, NeuroImage.

[20]  Anders M. Dale,et al.  Cortical Surface-Based Analysis I. Segmentation and Surface Reconstruction , 1999, NeuroImage.

[21]  R. Larsen,et al.  The Satisfaction with Life Scale , 1985, Journal of personality assessment.

[22]  Lisa Feldman Barrett,et al.  Neuroanatomical correlates of extraversion and neuroticism. , 2005, Cerebral cortex.

[23]  Akram Bakkour,et al.  The cortical signature of prodromal AD , 2009, Neurology.

[24]  Andrew D. Engell,et al.  The role of the amygdala in implicit evaluation of emotionally neutral faces. , 2008, Social cognitive and affective neuroscience.

[25]  J. O'Doherty,et al.  Automatic and intentional brain responses during evaluation of trustworthiness of faces , 2002, Nature Neuroscience.

[26]  Robin I. M. Dunbar.  Psychology. Evolution of the social brain. , 2003 .

[27]  Bradford C. Dickerson,et al.  Neuroanatomical correlates of personality in the elderly , 2007, NeuroImage.

[28]  Jerome Kagan,et al.  Differential amygdalar response to novel versus newly familiar neutral faces: a functional MRI probe developed for studying inhibited temperament , 2003, Biological Psychiatry.

[29]  Colin Camerer,et al.  Neural Systems Responding to Degrees of Uncertainty in Human Decision-Making , 2005, Science.

[30]  A. Lüthi,et al.  Processing of Temporal Unpredictability in Human and Animal Amygdala , 2007, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[31]  H. van Engeland,et al.  No evidence for preferential involvement of medial temporal lobe structures in high-functioning autism , 2006, Psychological Medicine.

[32]  Tom Johnstone,et al.  Amygdala Volume and Nonverbal Social Impairment in Adolescent and Adult Males with Autism , 2022 .

[33]  J. Silk.  Social Components of Fitness in Primate Groups , 2007, Science.

[34]  Christopher I. Wright,et al.  Novelty responses and differential effects of order in the amygdala, substantia innominata, and inferior temporal cortex , 2003, NeuroImage.

[35]  A. Toga,et al.  Localization of deformations within the amygdala in individuals with psychopathy. , 2009, Archives of general psychiatry.

[36]  J. Morris,et al.  The Cortical Signature of Alzheimer's Disease: Regionally Specific Cortical Thinning Relates to Symptom Severity in Very Mild to Mild AD Dementia and is Detectable in Asymptomatic Amyloid-Positive Individuals , 2008, Cerebral cortex.

[37]  M. Trimble,et al.  The Human Amygdala , 2010 .

[38]  Andrew D. Engell,et al.  Implicit Trustworthiness Decisions: Automatic Coding of Face Properties in the Human Amygdala , 2007, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[39]  G. Dawson,et al.  Brain structural abnormalities in young children with autism spectrum disorder , 2002, Neurology.

[40]  A M Dale,et al.  Measuring the thickness of the human cerebral cortex from magnetic resonance images. , 2000, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[41]  Bradford C. Dickerson,et al.  Novelty as a dimension in the affective brain , 2010, NeuroImage.

[42]  E. Courchesne,et al.  Face processing occurs outside the fusiform 'face area' in autism: evidence from functional MRI. , 2001, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[43]  Bradford C. Dickerson,et al.  Differential Hemodynamic Response in Affective Circuitry with Aging: An fMRI Study of Novelty, Valence, and Arousal , 2011, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[44]  John Patrick Aggleton,et al.  The Amygdala : a functional analysis , 2000 .

[45]  Social Ties and Susceptibility to the Common Cold , 1997 .

[46]  Jennifer C. Britton,et al.  Neural correlates of novelty and face–age effects in young and elderly adults , 2008, NeuroImage.

[47]  Shelley E. Taylor,et al.  Accounting for changes in social support among married older adults: insights from the MacArthur Studies of Successful Aging. , 2003, Psychology and aging.

[48]  M S Buchsbaum,et al.  Limbic circuitry in patients with autism spectrum disorders studied with positron emission tomography and magnetic resonance imaging. , 2000, The American journal of psychiatry.

[49]  R. K. Simpson.  Nature Neuroscience , 2022 .

[50]  Paul J. Whalen,et al.  The uncertainty of it all , 2007, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[51]  A. Dale,et al.  Cortical Surface-Based Analysis II: Inflation, Flattening, and a Surface-Based Coordinate System , 1999, NeuroImage.

[52]  J. Aggleton,et al.  Primate evolution and the amygdala , 2000 .

[53]  G. Striedter.  Principles of brain evolution. , 2005 .