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. 2020 Aug:145:106579.
doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2017.11.023. Epub 2017 Nov 21.

Neural correlates of improvements in personality and behavior following a neurological event

Marcie L King  1 , Kenneth Manzel  2 , Joel Bruss  3 , Daniel Tranel  4
Affiliations

Neural correlates of improvements in personality and behavior following a neurological event

Marcie L King et al. Neuropsychologia. 2020 Aug.

Abstract

Research on changes in personality and behavior following brain damage has focused largely on negative outcomes, such as increased irritability, moodiness, and social inappropriateness. However, clinical observations suggest that some patients may actually show positive personality and behavioral changes following a neurological event. In the current work, we investigated neuroanatomical correlates of positive personality and behavioral changes following a discrete neurological event (e.g., stroke, benign tumor resection). Patients (N = 97) were rated by a well-known family member or friend on five domains of personality and behavior: social behavior, irascibility, hypo-emotionality, distress, and executive functioning. Ratings were acquired during the chronic epoch of recovery, when psychological status was stabilized. We identified patients who showed positive changes in personality and behavior in one or more domains of functioning. Lesion analyses indicated that positive changes in personality and behavior were most consistently related to damage to the bilateral frontal polar regions and the right anterior dorsolateral prefrontal region. These findings support the conclusion that improvements in personality and behavior can occur after a neurological event, and that such changes have systematic neuroanatomical correlates. Patients who showed positive changes in personality and behavior following a neurological event were rated as having more disturbed functioning prior to the event. Our study may be taken as preliminary evidence that improvements in personality and behavior following a neurological event may involve dampening of (premorbidly) more extreme expressions of emotion.

Keywords: Behavior; Lesion; Neurological event; Personality.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of interest: none

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Overlap map depicting lesion distribution for the entire sample.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Proportional subtraction overlap map depicting brain damage in patients who improved overall on the ISPC.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Proportional subtraction overlap map depicting brain damage in patients who improved in the domain of social behavior on the ISPC.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Proportional subtraction overlap map depicting brain damage in patients who improved in the domain of irascibility on the ISPC.
Figure 5.
Figure 5.
Proportional subtraction overlap map depicting brain damage in patients who improved in the domain of hypo-emotionality on the ISPC.
Figure 6.
Figure 6.
Proportional subtraction overlap map depicting brain damage in patients who improved in the domain of distress on the ISPC.
Figure 7.
Figure 7.
Proportional subtraction overlap map depicting brain damage in patients who improved in the domain of executive functioning on the ISPC.
Figure 8.
Figure 8.
a. Lesion map for patient 3534 in lateral, medial, and coronal views. b. Lesion map for patient 2021 in lateral, medial, and coronal views. c. Lesion map for patient 2410 in lateral, medial, and coronal views.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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