Dr. Sandra Weintraub

And then after we were able to have the first few post-mortem autopsies,

We looked at that part of the brain, and it seems to contain a very special kind of brain cell called a von Economo neuron.

It's called von Economo after the neurologist, the anatomist who named the neuron after himself.

And it's kind of a very peculiar shaped neuron.

It happens to be in that part of the brain and in other parts of the brain that are very strongly involved in social activity.

brain networks of reading social signs and reading facial expressions and tone of voice.

And that neuron happens to be found in highly social species, elephants, whales, bonobos, great apes, humans.

And so we thought, well, okay, they have the biological matrix for being very social.

And so maybe that contributes to their being so social.

But we have no proof.

I mean, you would have to...

I don't know what kind of experiment you would do to compare people who don't have an anterior slit.

Yeah, you don't want to do that.

I don't want to do that.

Yeah.

I am familiar with the work.

Not as familiar as I am with my own work, but yes.

And I believe that their cohort, one of their cohort was Harvard men who graduated in 1942, kind of highly privileged, highly educated, professional, and then they had inner city men who didn't have all those opportunities.

And

the most striking finding for me was that it didn't matter where you came from, but that social positive approach to life was in both what made both groups successful for those who were successful.