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Study Shows Brain Responds More To Close Friends
An anonymous reader writes "People's brains are more responsive to friends than to strangers, even if the stranger has more in common, according to a study in the Oct. 13 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience. Researchers examined a brain region known to be involved in processing social information, and the results suggest that social alliances outweigh shared interests. In a study led by graduate student Fenna Krienen and senior author Randy Buckner, PhD, of Harvard University, researchers investigated how the medial prefrontal cortex and associated brain regions signal someone's value in a social situation. Previous work has shown that perceptions of others' beliefs guide social interactions. Krienen and her colleagues wondered whether these brain regions respond more to those we know, or to those with whom we share similar interests."
What are these "friends" you speak of?
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
Facebook friends or real friends? ;)
Tired of my customary (Score:1)
I did finally leave my mom's basement, but now I am not leaving the house or stepping outside during the day. Baby steps here, Baby steps.
The world is how you make it
Funny, I would have thought that Pinky would respond more to close friends.
I had a female friend in high school like that. She'd come right out and give you permission to BRIEFLY stare at them, because she said she understood what kind of challenge it presented to some people. So you got ten seconds to look at them, an opportunity to make a (tasteful) comment about her beauty, and then you could start the actual conversation. It actually seemed to help some people focus.