Mapping the Mind

Can a person’s neuroanatomy tell them about who they are? This was one of the most intriguing questions asked at a talk with Prof. Robert Turner, director of Neurophysics at the Max-Planck Institute, and Geraint Rees, director of the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience at UCL.

Unlike the other talks I had been to, I had decided to bring two guests sans science-background along for the ride, hoping that after the lecture they too would share my enthusiasm for neuroscience. Professor Robert Turner began with an introduction to the realm of neuroscience, covering the birth of phrenology by Franz Joseph Gall to Maguire’s study on increased hippocampi in taxi drivers in 2000. Geraint Rees then proceeded to address the question of whether an individual’s brain structure played a role in determining how they saw the world. Rees pointed out that in fact the visual cortices of different individuals differ two- or three-fold, so does this affect how we see?

Findings from research on optical illusions seem to imply that it does. A bigger V1 (visual cortex) is correlated with a weaker perception of the illusion. The more intriguing findings, however, were found in studies that used bi-rate optical illusions – where you can perceive two different things from one picture, say the famous image of a face that could easily be seen as an old lady, or a young woman.

Studies observed that the parietal cortex and the width of grey matter in the brain had an effect on ‘flip rate’ – flipping from one illusion to another (i.e. old lady to young woman). Inducing a temporary lesion through transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) also provided support for the involvement of those structures in flip rates.

But apparently there is not only a link between neuroanatomy and the perception of optical illusions, but several brain structures appear to be linked to the even more complicated cognitive process of political attitude. Rees and his colleagues observed that the anterior cingulated and the amygdala could “weakly but significantly predict political attitudes”.

Although telling the character of a person through their neuroanatomy still appears to be in its infancy, it provides a promise in investigating what makes us individuals so, well, individual. Furthermore my guests were just as intrigued as I was, which I think adds as another success to this talk.