Biology of personality dimensions

Rapid progress is being made in understanding the neurobiology of human personality. This has been facilitated by using self-report questionnaires that assess multiple dimensions of personality quantitatively and reliably. Hypothesis-driven research has mapped models with five to seven dimensions of personality to results from brain imaging, neurophysiology, neurochemistry, and molecular genetics. At each level of organization there are non-linear interactions among multiple variables. Even at the molecular genetic level, each personality dimension is influenced by epistatic interactions among a family of genes, and the sets influencing each trait are partially specific and partially overlapping. What emerges is a picture of self-organizing complexity appropriate for psychobiological systems that involve adaptation to an ever-changing environment. Curr Opin Psychiatry 13:611-616 (C) 2000 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.