Social skills depend upon your brain size: Study

Are you good at making friends? Then, you are more likely to have a larger brain area linked with understanding the minds of others, scientists say.

Scientists at University of Oxford found an association between the size of the orbital frontal cortex -- the part of the brain just above the eyes -- and the number of friends a person has. The larger the area is, the bigger the social network of a person, the researchers said.

Previous studies have shown that monkeys that live in larger groups grow bigger brains. Scientists have even found that some brain regions that process social signals, facial expressions and names are larger in people with more Facebook friends.
In the latest study, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, brain scans revealed that volunteers with the largest numbers of friends also had the largest orbital frontal cortex.

"The size of the orbitofrontal cortex in particular determines how good you are at these mentalizing skills, and these mentalizing skills, in turn, determine the number of friends you have," lead researcher Robin Dunbar was quoted as saying by LiveScience.

In the study, the participants also completed some tests to determine how good they were at "mentalizing," or understanding another person's mental state. This process is similar to empathy but goes beyond understanding emotions to understanding another person's goals, needs and reasoning.

"We included any form of contact, providing it was a genuine interaction and not just a kind of 'Twitter,' as it were, to the wider world," Dunbar said. "We were trying to look at the people you get together with on a serious basis."

Looking at these factors —- size of social network, brain anatomy and ability to mentalize -- it was found that those with larger social networks tend to have larger orbital prefrontal cortexes.

This area of the brain sits right behind the eyes and is responsible for directing appropriate social behaviour and interactions with others, the researchers said.
"The orbital part of the prefrontal cortex is especially associated with things like emotion and reward," Dunbar said.

Importantly, the relationship between the size of the orbital prefrontal cortex and the size of a social network was explained by a person's ability to envision other people's thoughts and emotions.

However, the researchers said that it is not entirely clear from the research whether big orbital prefrontal cortexes are innate, or whether they enlarge in response to gaining more friends.

Certainly, a functional orbital prefrontal cortex is key for understanding social situations -- people with damage to these regions are very bad at interacting with others, Dunbar added.