Personality and complex brain networks: The role of openness to experience in default network efficiency
Open Access
- 26 November 2015
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Wiley in Human Brain Mapping
- Vol. 37 (2), 773-779
- https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.23065
Abstract
The brain's default network (DN) has been a topic of considerable empirical interest. In fMRI research, DN activity is associated with spontaneous and self-generated cognition, such as mind-wandering, episodic memory retrieval, future thinking, mental simulation, theory of mind reasoning, and creative cognition. Despite large literatures on developmental and disease-related influences on the DN, surprisingly little is known about the factors that impact normal variation in DN functioning. Using structural equation modeling and graph theoretical analysis of resting-state fMRI data, we provide evidence that Openness to Experience—a normally distributed personality trait reflecting a tendency to engage in imaginative, creative, and abstract cognitive processes—underlies efficiency of information processing within the DN. Across two studies, Openness predicted the global efficiency of a functional network comprised of DN nodes and corresponding edges. In Study 2, Openness remained a robust predictor—even after controlling for intelligence, age, gender, and other personality variables—explaining 18% of the variance in DN functioning. These findings point to a biological basis of Openness to Experience, and suggest that normally distributed personality traits affect the intrinsic architecture of large-scale brain systems. Hum Brain Mapp 37:773–779, 2016.Keywords
Funding Information
- Society of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick for the Relief of Emigrants from Ireland
- John Templeton Foundation
- Austrian Science Fund (P23914)
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