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Structure In Brain Linked To Varied Social Life

Posted by timothy on from the party-node-for-party-mode dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Scientists have discovered that the amygdala, a small, almond-shaped structure deep within the temporal lobe, is important to a rich and varied social life among humans. The finding was published this week in a new study in Nature Neuroscience and is similar to previous findings in other primate species, which compared the size and complexity of social groups across those species."

2 of 96 comments (clear)

  1. Re:And you, have you ever kissed a girl? by Goldberg's+Pants · · Score: 5, Funny

    I have a wife... But I think after that my amygdala got removed. Socializing? What's that?

  2. Re:I wonder how that relates to spatial reasoning by damaged_sectors · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I suspect it's a matter of time tradeoffs. People who like to bully devote a certain amount of time developing those skills - time others devote to developing other skills.

    Most of the plus 140 IQ (Stanford Binet) people I know had poor social skills until their thirties - they studied in class, and did homework while their classmates didn't.

    I've an idea that things might have been different if they hadn't been alienated in their early schooling years.

    Yes - I was one of them. By Form 4 (Year something these days) most of the people I spent my time around had more common ground with me and things changed. Though Slashdot posters will disagree - these days my social skills exceed those of my former school mates. I still bump into them - they don't travel much, they still associate with the same small group of people, most have divorced, and all of them speak only one language.

    I have no regrets or bitterness about those early years - I often give work to some of my former bullies. I long since developed the skills to be happy and comfortable in any social situation (and learnt to fight). Unlike those that developed their social skills early - my social group includes a large range of different people, age groups, ethnicity, income, opinions. From bikers to bankers. From adversity comes flexibility and strength.

    So Psycotria, our schooling was fucked - but have a look at where your bullies are now... do you really want to be like them? Chances are they now want to be like you.