It could be a taste of the future for job interviews and the beginning of the end for curmudgeonly work colleagues.

Scientists at Cambridge University have used medical scanners to pinpoint brain features that identify someone as being a likeable "people person" or a wallflower.

The scans revealed that people who most value the company of others have, on average, more dense grey matter in two areas of the brain known as the orbitofrontal cortex and the ventral striatum.

These brain regions are involved in what scientists call "reward circuits" for some of our most basic pleasures, such as sweet food and sex.

Graham Murray, a psychiatrist who led the study, said the findings may provide clues to how humans came to be sociable beings. The brain may first have evolved to give us pleasurable sensations from eating and reproducing, and later developed to incoporate more complex behaviours, such as interacting with other people, he said.

By unravelling the neural basis of sociability, scientists hope to learn more about medical conditions such as autism and schizophrenia, which can have a devastating effect on people's ability to interact with others.

Murray's team asked 41 men to respond to more than 140 statements about themselves, rating how much they agreed or disagreed with each. They included around 20 statements that focused on sociability, such as "I like to please people as much as I can", and "I make a warm personal connection with people".

MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scans of the men's brains revealed a strong link between those who valued social bonds with others and the density of grey matter in the two brain regions.

Murray, whose study appears in the European Journal of Neuroscience, said the differences in brain structure might begin early on in our development, and are then reinforced as we grow up.

"It's likely there's a snowball effect. If these brain structures happen to be more dense from the start, that may help you to be more sociable. But in turn, by being more sociable you will foster further growth in those brain regions," he said.

The technology may not find its way into company's recruitment processes any time soon, Murray added. "Doing a brain scan might be going a bit far. If you want to know if someone's sociable or not, the best way is to ask one of their friends."

这可能是未来工作面试的体验，同时也可能是脾气古怪的同事不复存在的时代拉开了序幕。

剑桥大学的科学家们使用医用扫描仪，找出一些大脑特征，可以用来鉴别某人是一个可爱的“与人相处融洽的人”，还是不太合群不受欢迎的人。

扫描显示，喜欢和他人相处的人平均来说，在大脑的两个区域，即眼窝前额皮质区(orbitofrontal cortex)和腹侧纹状体区(ventral striatum)，其灰色质密度相对较大。

这两个大脑区域都是科学家所说的“奖赏环路”的一部分，奖赏我们人类的一些最基本的快乐之事，如甜食和性。

主持这项研究的精神病学专家格雷厄姆·穆雷认为，这一研究结果可为探索人类如何成为社会动物提供线索。他说，大脑可能首先演化成能让我们从进食及生育中感受到快感，后来发展到涵盖一些更为复杂的行为，比如与人交往。

通过揭示社交习性的神经基础，科学家希望能对诸如自闭症和精神症等一类病症有更多的了解，这些病症对人们同他人交往的能力会具有破坏性的影响。

穆雷的研究小组要求41名测试人员就140条有关他们自己的陈述予以回复，对每条陈述的同意或不同意程度给出分数。这些陈述中有20条左右是侧重于社交习性的，比如“我尽可能地令他人高兴”，和“我和他人建立热情的私人关系。”

对人脑进行的MRI(核磁共振成像)扫描发现，重视与他人社会联系的人，与两个大脑区域的灰色质密度之间存在密切的相关性。

穆雷的这一研究报告已刊登在《欧洲神经学》杂志上，他说，大脑结构的差异可能开始于个体发展的早期，并随着个体的成长而得以加强。

他说：“这方面可能存在雪球效应。如果一开始，你的大脑结构就具有更高的密度，那么就可以帮助你更善于交际。但反过来，越是善于交际的人，越能进一步促进这些大脑区域灰色质密度的增强。”

穆雷补充说，这项技术或许还不能在短期内应用到公司的招聘程序中去。“如果你想知道某人是否喜好交际，给他做个脑部扫描可能有点过分，最好的办法还是问一下他的朋友。”

That scared me....