Personality associations with the uptake of the cerebral blood flow marker 99MTc-Exametazime estimated with single photon emission tomography.

The associations between personality dimensions of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire and individual differences in the regional uptake of 99mTc-Exametazime in brain were studied in 51 healthy volunteers. Extraversion was significantly correlated (r = 0.46, P < 0.001) with tracer uptake in the anterior and posterior cingulate areas bilaterally, whereas no significant associations were found with neuroticism or psychoticism. The results are presented with reference to recent studies which have, on the one hand, interpreted extraversion differences in relation to theories of attention and, on the other, demonstrated the role of the cingulate area as a possible neuronal substrate for attentional processing mechanisms.