Does the shape or our brains determine or at least influence the way we think?
So we all look human, however we all have differences in the way we look. I wonder whether our brains grow into (slightly) unique shapes and structures that allow some connections to be made more efficiently and maintained more easily and those pathways are what determine our personality and the way we think? Basically what I want to know is if our brains are built from our genetics, then are we each predisposed to certain ways of thinking as a result of the structures of our unique brains?
Posted Jan 9, 2020, 5:43 AM UTC
56
Hmm quite a big question here. So with shape, we have either the anatomical level or the cellular/neural network level. The former concerns things like how big a given brain region is with respect to the brain for example. The latter is about the actual connections made at the neuronal level, like the efficiency of a network, the number of synapses, the strength of synapses, the neuronal density, etc. A lot of these are genetically influenced, but the truth is that the brain is quite plastic and a given region may be bigger if used more often just like synapses may be more prevalent in another region due to use. As an example, London cab drives have quite the large hippocampus, because of the nature of their job. And besides use, many other environmental factors affect gene expression and epigenetics. Another example is the fact that Einsteins brain had a quite big numerical and spatial reasoning processing regions, but smaller speech and language regions.
Now does this affect personality? Most certainly. Do we know how? Not really, but we have some ideas. What exactly do genetics determine? Well they directly influence the proteins that you express like ion channels and such, how much you express them and where. So perhaps an ion channel may have different biophysical properties allowing for faster conductivity. Or perhaps a proteins involved in the development of the brain (e.g. Axon guidance) are different than in other people, and so you get a different neuronal network architecture. The problem is, as you see, we're trying to link something at a very basic level (proteins) to something at an extremely high level (actual reaction and functionality of the brain regions). I think it's best if I give you examples of how a polymorphism leads to a difference on a fundamental personality trait, I'm sure we have dissected at least one of such pathways, but I can't cite any right now. I'll edit later, if no one else gives better input.
Edit: English