Personality Profiles Are Associated with Functional Brain Networks Related to Cognition and Emotion

Abstract

Personality factors as defined by the "five-factor model" are some of the most investigated characteristics that underlie various types of complex behavior. These are, however, often investigated as isolated traits that are conceptually independent, yet empirically are typically strongly related to each other. We apply Independent Component Analysis to these personality factors as measured by the NEO-FFI in 471 healthy subjects from the Human Connectome Project to investigate independent personality profiles that incorporate all five original factors. Subsequently we examine how these profiles are related to patterns of resting-state brain activity in specific networks-of-interest related to cognition and emotion. We find that a personality profile of contrasting openness and agreeableness is associated with engagement of a subcortical-medial prefrontal network and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Likewise, a profile of contrasting extraversion and conscientiousness is associated with activity in the precuneus. This study shows a novel approach to investigating personality and how it is related to patterns of activity in the resting brain.

Figure 1

Personality and resting-state correlations and independent components. Top-left: full correlation matrix for the original personality factors. Top-right: normalized representation of the ICA-decomposition for the personality factors into new personality profiles. Each column shows an independent component with the loading onto the original personality factors. Bottom-left: full correlation matrix for the resting-state time series of the 12 regions-of-interest. Bottom-right: normalized representation of the ICA-decomposition for the resting-state time series. Each column shows an independent spatial pattern (or ‘temporal mode’) with loading onto the 12 regions-of-interest. Abbreviations: sgACC – subgenual anterior cingulate, mPFC – medial prefrontal cortex, dACC – dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, PCC – posterior cingulate cortex, PCu – precuneus, OFC – orbitofrontal cortex, dlPFC – dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.

Figure 2

Regions-of-interest. Graphical representation of the regions-of-interest used to extract time series that are the basis the creating the temporal modes. Regions are presented on the left hemisphere. *The right amygdala and hippocampus are not represented but mirror their left equivalent.