Regional gray matter density associated with emotional intelligence: Evidence from voxel‐based morphometry

Abstract

Emotional Intelligence (EI) is the ability to monitor one's own and others' emotions and the ability to use the gathered information to guide one's thinking and action. EI is thought to be important for social life making it a popular subject of research. However, despite the existence of previous functional imaging studies on EI, the relationship between regional gray matter morphology and EI has never been investigated. We used voxel-based morphometry (VBM) and a questionnaire (Emotional Intelligence Scale) to measure EI to identify the gray matter correlates of each factor of individual EI (Intrapersonal factor, Interpersonal factor, Situation Management factor). We found significant negative relationships between the Intrapersonal factor and regional gray matter density (rGMD) (1-a) in an anatomical cluster that included the right anterior insula, (1-b) in the right cerebellum, (1-c) in an anatomical cluster that extends from the cuneus to the precuneus, (1-d) and in an anatomical cluster that extends from the medial prefrontal cortex to the left lateral fronto-polar cortex. We also found significant positive correlations between the Interpersonal factor and rGMD in the right superior temporal sulcus, and significant negative correlations between the Situation Management factor and rGMD in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. These findings suggest that each factor of EI in healthy young people is related to the specific brain regions known to be involved in the networks of social cognition and self-related recognition, and in the somatic marker circuitry.

The association between the brain and mind pops: a voxel-based morphometry study in 256 Chinese college students

“…Mind pops were positively correlated with GMV in the right prefrontal gyrus and negatively correlated with GMV in the left temporal gyrus. The reverse tendency seems difficult to understand, leading to an open question to be answered for future studies (Takeuchi et al 2011;Banissy et al 2012). There are several factors unfolding such an observation.…”

The structure of the amygdala associates with human sexual permissiveness: Evidence from voxel‐based morphometry

“…In this study, we used rGMD for two reasons. First, in our recent study, including subjects with the same characteristics as those of this study [Takeuchi et al, 2010a], rGMD across the brain was correlated with emotional intelligence, which represents the individual's emotional and social competence. Because this study addresses complex sexual behaviors in society, rGMD may be associated to a greater extent with sexual attitude.…”

“…Seven hundred and seventy-seven healthy, right-handed individuals (433 men and 344 women; 20.7 6 1.9 years) participated in this study as part of an ongoing project investigating associations among brain imaging, cognitive functions, aging, genetics, and daily habits [Takeuchi et al, 2011a[Takeuchi et al, ,c, 2014a2013a, 2012a, 2010a,b, 2011cTaki et al, 2010Taki et al, , 2011. Data derived from the subjects in this study are to be used in other studies irrelevant to the theme of this study.…”

“…In this study, we focused on regional density measure (unmodulated [Ashburner and Friston, 2000] VBM measures), as was the case with our previous studies investigating the associations between socioemotional cognitive differences and regional gray matter structures [Takeuchi et al, 2010a[Takeuchi et al, , 2014c. As described in the Results, we found opposite patterns of correlation between the results obtained for rGMD and rWMD in the bilateral amygdala [rGMD showed a significant (or a tendency for) negative correlation with sexual permissiveness, whereas rWMD showed a significant (or a tendency for) positive correlation with sexual permissiveness].…”

The Neurobiological Basis and Potential Modification of Emotional Intelligence through Affective / Behavioral Training

“…Whereas those initial studies compared emotional/social-processing tasks to resting baseline, a subsequent study using a more complex auditory paradigm with a nonresting comparison condition found positive correlations between EI and some cortical emotional processing regions, while failing to find activation in more primitive regions such as the amygdala (Kreifelts, Ethofer, Huberle, Grodd, & Wildgruber, 2010). Recent structural neuroimaging studies have also suggested that measures of EI are related to gray matter volume within the vmPFC Koven, Roth, Garlinghouse, Flashman, & Saykin, 2011;Takeuchi et al, 2011), further supporting this region as a potentially important contributor to EI capacities.…”