There is a link between our brain structure and our tolerance of risk, find economists who say they have found the first stable 'biomarker' for financial risk-attitudes.
Does that mean there is a causal link between brain structure and behavior? Neuroscientists and psychologists tend to fall into that trap but the scholars in the Journal of Neuroscience avoid that trap.
Dr Agnieszka Tymula, an economist at the University of Sydney, and colleagues found that the gray matter volume of a region in the right posterior parietal cortex was significantly predictive of individual risk attitudes. Men and women with higher gray matter volume in this region exhibited less risk aversion.
"Individual risk attitudes are correlated with the gray matter volume in the posterior parietal cortex suggesting existence of an anatomical biomarker for financial risk-attitude," said Dr Tymula. This means tolerance of risk "could potentially be measured in billions of existing medical brain scans."
While it doesn't mean structural changes in the brain lead to changes in risk attitude or whether that individual's risky choices alter his or her brain structure – or both - it merits further to study.
"The findings fit nicely with our previous findings on risk attitude and aging. In our Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2013 paper we found that as people age they become more risk averse," she said. "From other work we know that cortex thins substantially as we age. It is possible that changes in risk attitude over lifespan are caused by thinning of the cortex."
Published in the Journal of Neuroscience. Source: University of Sydney
