THE PERSONALITY AND THE BRAIN: AN INEVITABLE ENCOUNTER

Abstract

Personality is a construct that, until recent years, had not attracted much interest among neurologists and neuropsychologists. However, during the past decade, studies have proliferated that seek brain, structural and functional correlates of personality traits proposed by different theories, especially the Big Five model of personality. These studies have accumulated evidence about the fact that the five traits are related to specific brain locations, allowing us, at the present time, to be able to draw a brain map associated with each trait. More recent studies relate these features with the brain default mode network, where the compendium of implicit rules of management which we call personality resides. This will gradually take shape throughout one’s lifetime through mechanisms of "experience-dependent plasticity". These proposals represent the threshold of a paradigm shift that may lead the study of "mental disorders" to the territory of alterations in brain connectivity, which is an immediate challenge for neuroscience.

Keywords

• Big Five Model
• Brain
• Default mode network
• Neuroimage
• Neuroplasticity
• Neuroscience.