I like big brains and I cannot lie

NEW YORK – Do you spend time with a lot of friends? That might mean a particular part of your brain is larger than usual.

It’s the amygdala, which lies deep inside. Brain scans of 58 volunteers in a preliminary study indicated that the bigger the amygdala, the more friends and family the volunteers reported seeing regularly.

That makes sense because the amygdala is at the center of a brain network that’s important for socializing, says Lisa Feldman Barrett, an author of the work published online Sunday by the journal Nature Neuroscience.

For example, the network helps us recognize whether somebody is a stranger or an acquaintance, and a friend or a foe, said Barrett, of Northeastern University in Boston.

The study can’t figure out whether having a bigger amygdala leads to more friends, or if socializing with a lot of friends creates a bigger amygdala. Barrett said it might be a bit of both .

No word on what this means for facebook users who have more than 1,000 friends. How important to you is socializing with your friends?