Neuroimaging Personality, Social Cognition, and Character

Neuroimaging Personality, Social Cognition, and Character covers the science of combining brain imaging with other analytical techniques for use in understanding cognition, behavior, consciousness, memory, language, visual perception, emotional control, and other human attributes. Multidimensional brain imaging research has led to a greater understanding of character traits such as honesty, generosity, truthfulness, and foresight previously unachieved by quantitative mapping. This book summarizes the latest brain imaging research pertaining to character with structural and functional human brain imaging in both normal individuals and those with brain disease or disorder, including psychiatric disorders. By reviewing and synthesizing the latest structural and functional brain imaging research related to character, this book situates itself into the larger framework of cognitive neuroscience, psychiatric neuroimaging, related fields of research, and a wide range of academic fields, such as politics, psychology, medicine, education, law, and religion.

Provides a novel innovative reference on the emerging use of neuroimaging to reveal the biological substrates of character, such as optimism, honesty, generosity, and othersFeatures chapters from leading physicians and researchers in the fieldContains full-color text that includes both an overview of multiple disciplines and a detailed review of modern neuroimaging tools as they are applied to study human characterPresents an integrative volume with far-reaching implications for guiding future imaging research in the social, psychological and medical sciences, and for applying these findings to a wide range of non-clinical disciplines such as law, politics, and religionConnects brain structure and function to human character and integrates modern neuroimaging techniques and other research methods for this purpose

Section I. Introduction 1. Hypersexuality and Neuroimaging Personality, Social Cognition, and Character

Section II. Perspectives on the neural basis of personality and dispositions 2. Approach/Avoidance 3. Integrating Personality/Character Neuroscience with Network Analysis 4. Genetics, brain, and personality: searching for intermediate phenotypes 5. Anxiety and Harm Avoidance 6. Impulsiveness and inhibitory mechanisms

Section III.  Brain imaging perspectives on understanding the self and others: from perception to social cognition 7. The Neuroscience of Social Vision 8. Social Vision: At the Intersection of Vision and Person Perception 9. Neuroimaging Investigations of the Impact of Social Hierarchies and Social Status 10. Cognitive Neuroscience of Self-reflection

Section IV. Brain imaging perspectives on affect and emotion regulation 11. The Neural Basis of Frustration State 12. Emotional learning and regulation in social situations 13. Emotion and aging: The impact of emotion on attention, memory, and face recognition in late adulthood

Section V: Brain imaging perspectives on the basis of prosociability 14. Cultural Neuroscience of Moral Reasoning and Decision Making 15. Empathy 16. Honesty

Section VI. Brain imaging and society 17. The henchman’s brain: Neuropsychological implications of authoritarianism and prejudice 18. The Neural Mechanisms of Prejudice Intervention 19. Political Neuroscience 20. Science in Society: Neuroscience and Lay Understandings of Self and Identity 21. Toward a Neuroscience of Wisdom