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Personality traits are multidimensional traits comprising cognitive, emotional, and behavioral characteristics, and a wide array of cerebral structures mediate individual variability. Differences in personality traits covary with brain morphometry in specific brain regions, and neuroimaging studies showed structural or functional abnormalities of cerebellum in subjects with personality disorders, suggesting a cerebellar role in affective processing and an effect on personality characteristics. To test the hypothesis that cerebellar [white matter (WM) and cortex] volumes are correlated with scores obtained in the four temperamental scales of the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) by Cloninger, a total of 125 healthy participants aged 18–67 years of both genders (males = 52) completed the TCI and underwent magnetic resonance imaging. The scores obtained in each temperamental scale were associated with the volumes of cerebellar WM and cortex of right and left hemispheres separately by using linear regression analyses. In line with our hypothesis, novelty seeking (NS) scores were positively associated with WM and cortex cerebellar volumes. Harm avoidance (HA) scores were negatively associated with WM and cortex cerebellar volumes. The range of individual differences in NS and HA scores reflects the range of variances of cerebellar volumes. The present data indicating a cerebellar substrate for some personality traits extend the relationship between personality and brain areas to a structure up to now thought to be involved mainly in motor and cognitive functions, much less in emotional processes and even less in personality individual differences. Hum Brain Mapp 35:285–296, 2014. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The analysis of sequences of words and prosody, meter, and rhythm provided in an interview addressing the capacity to identify and describe emotions represents a powerful tool to reveal emotional processing. The ability to express and identify emotions was analyzed by means of the Toronto Structured Interview for Alexithymia (TSIA), and TSIA transcripts were analyzed by Natural Language Processing to shed light on verbal features. The brain correlates of the capacity to translate emotional experience into words were determined through cortical thickness measures. A machine learning methodology proved that individuals with deficits in identifying and describing emotions (n = 7) produced language distortions, frequently used the present tense of auxiliary verbs, and few possessive determiners, as well as scarcely connected the speech, in comparison to individuals without deficits (n = 7). Interestingly, they showed high cortical thickness at left temporal pole and low at isthmus of the right cingulate cortex. Overall, we identified the neuro-linguistic pattern of the expression of emotional experience.

Following the recognition of its role in sensory-motor coordination and learning, the cerebellum has been involved in cognitive, emotional, and even personality domains. This study investigated the relationships between cerebellar macro- and micro-structural variations and temperamental traits measured by Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI). High resolution T1-weighted, and Diffusion Tensor Images of 100 healthy subjects aged 18-59 years were acquired by 3 Tesla Magnetic Resonance scanner. In multiple regression analyses, cerebellar Gray Matter (GM) or White Matter (WM) volumes, GM Mean Diffusivity (MD), and WM Fractional Anisotropy (FA) were used as dependent variables, TCI scores as regressors, gender, age, and education years as covariates. Novelty Seeking scores were associated positively with the cerebellar GM volumes and FA, and negatively with MD. No significant association between Harm Avoidance, Reward Dependence or Persistence scores and cerebellar structural measures was found. The present data put toward a cerebellar involvement in the management of novelty. © 2013 Picerni, Petrosini, Piras, Laricchiuta, Cutuli, Chiapponi, Fagioli, Girardi, Caltagirone and Spalletta.