
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, February 12, 1991                   TAG: 9102120223
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: B6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

BRAIN PATTERNS TIED TO DISPOSITION

The secret to a sunny disposition, or a doleful one for that matter, may lie in a specific pattern of brain activity, recent studies suggest.

People with more activity in the left frontal cortex than in the right, the data suggest, tend to have a cheerful temperament. Typically they react with delight and interest to people and situations of all sorts.

On the other hand, those with more activity in the right frontal area of the brain shrink from encounters with people or situations and are easily fazed by setbacks.

They are likely to be indifferent to the films their cheerful counterparts adore, for example, and extremely upset by films the cheery types find only mildly unpleasant.

If the findings hold up, researchers say, analysis of brain activity may offer a simple way to identify at an early age people who, over the course of life, are especially vulnerable to depression.

A study now under way is testing to see if a psychotherapy designed to help people control their negative emotions can do so, and, if it does, whether it also changes the brain pattern.

The first hint of a link between a specific brain pattern and people's moods was observed serendipitously in the late 1970s by researchers at the University of Oregon and the State University of New York at Purchase who were working independently on brain activity patterns and behavior.

In the years since, and with increasing rapidity in the last year or two, research ranging from work with brain-damaged patients to studies with method actors mimicking elation and depression have confirmed the finding.

Much of the research has been done by Dr. Richard Davidson, formerly at the State University of New York at Purchase and now at the University of Wisconsin, and his colleagues.

For example, in a recent study researchers analyzed the brain activity of 99 women as they sat quietly. The scores of the women who had marked right frontal activity tended to reflect a highly negative outlook, while those with more activity on the left had scores showing a positive outlook.

by CNB