Size of Brain is Directly Proportional to the Number of Friends You Have

A new study published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Academy of Biological Sciences suggests that the size of your brain may be directly linked to the number of friends that you have. The study was conducted by researchers from University of Oxford who found that the size of orbital prefrontal cortex, a region of the brain just above the eyes, is linked with the number of friends that a person has.

The researchers found that the region is bigger among those who have many friends and is smaller among those who have too few friends. The researchers speculated that a person needs to have a set of cognitive skills necessary to have a certain number of friends.

“We found that individuals who had more friends did better on mentalizing tasks and had more neural volume in the orbital frontal cortex. Understanding this link between an individual’s brain size and the number of friends they have helps us understand the mechanisms that have led to humans developing bigger brains than other primate species”, lead researcher Professor Robin Dunbar said.

Source-Medindia