Overthinking it
Neuroticism is a personality trait that lends itself to worry, anxiety and isolation. Highly neurotic people are more susceptible to mental illness than happy-go-lucky types; they're also worse at high-risk professions like military aviation or bomb disposal, which require coolness under pressure. On the other hand, neuroticism seems linked to creative pursuits. Studies have found, for example, that artists and other creative people score higher on tests of neuroticism than people who aren't in creative fields.
"This is something that bothered me for a long time," said Adam Perkins, a lecturer in the neurobiology of personality at King's College London. Perkins is the co-author of a new opinion piece published Aug. 27 in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences that lays out the possible links between neuroticism and creativity in the brain.
Perkins was listening to a lecture by Jonathan Smallwood, a psychologist and expert on daydreaming at the University of York in England, when Smallwood mentioned that people who report high levels of negative thoughts show lots of activation in a brain region called the medial prefrontal cortex, even when they're just resting in a brain scanner. This area, which sits behind the forehead, is involved in the appraisal of threat.
"It's quite a simple leap to think they've got a sort of internal threat generator in their heads," Perkins told Live Science. "They can be lying down in bed or sitting in an armchair in a perfectly neutral environment, and yet they're feeling as if they're under threat."
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