The next time someone tells you your worries are all in the mind, agree with them. Researchers have found out that a certain part of the brain may be able to predict how much of a risk-taker a person is.
In a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience Sept. 10, researchers Paul Glimcher, Ifat Levy, and their colleagues showed that those with bigger parts of a certain portion of the parietal cortex were more open to taking risks than those who have smaller ones. According to Glimcher, a professor at the Center for Neural Science at the New York University, this is the first time that a biomarker for human risk attitude was observed, opening the possibility that a simple brain scan can be used to understand and predict better how people respond to risk.
Personal and cognitive traits have been associated with brain structure before but little have been done to explore the role of the brain in economic preferences. This is the idea that Glimcher, Levy, and their colleagues chose to pursue in the study.
With participants hailing from northeastern United States, the study was first done with a group of 28 men and women. The second wave of participants were made up of 33 individuals, still composed of men and women from the same region.
To carry out the study, participants were tasked with choosing between monetary lotteries that carried varying levels of risk. After making their choice, participants underwent standard anatomical brain scans to check the size of their parietal cortices.
Levy, an assistant professor in comparative medicine and neurobiology at the Yale School of Medicine, said that their findings help explain differences in risk-taking attitudes based on differences in brain structure. However, she warns that the study doesn't necessarily point to causality, adding that the researchers don't know if behavioral changes lead to structural changes in the brain or vice versa.
Since the study focused on economic preferences in relation to brain structure, Glimcher says that their research may lead to using brain scans as a more effective way of assessing risk attitudes which is integral in making investment choices. Questionnaires are available for that purpose but a brain scan may provide a more accurate reading of risk tolerance in an individual.
Funded by the National Institute of Aging, the study is a collaboration between the New York University, Yale University, University College London, the University of Sydney, and the University of Pennsylvania. Other authors include: Joseph Kable, Nicole Cooper, Agnieszka Tymula, and Sharon Gilaie-Dotan.
