Brain Typing’s mental processes and their respective cerebral locales based upon neuroscientific studies

The following reflect the brain’s influence on the eight Brain Types dimensions. These are only basic points. (For a more detailed explanation, watch for soon-to-be-released new material from BTI):

Front brain-dominant and Back brain-dominant—measuring focus, levels of energy, and a host of other cerebral functions

Front brain (F): anterior to central sulcus

--personality—the prefrontal cortex is the most significant area for creating one’s outward “personality”.

--Expressing language through conversation/speech is activated by Brocas area in the left anterior forebrain. In general, those demonstrating extraversion are programmed from birth to be more adept in the Frontal lobes and tend to speak more and louder than those manifesting introverted characteristics. Nurturing, environment, and genetic variances also affect speech patterns—thus explaining most speech differences between Front- and Back-brain dominant persons.

A University of California medical school used PET scans to examine brain regions of people while speaking. They looked at the brain while they (1) made nonsense syllables, (2) recited the months of the year, and (3) recited a briefly memorized prose passage. While both the "mindless" recitation of the months and the prose passage used Wernicke's area (the top back part of the temporal lobe), ONLY the prose showed activity in Broca's area. The conclusion: rote memorized verbal tasks require little thought or sophisticated cortical activity. Bookheimer, S., et al. 2000. Neurology, Vol 55(8), 1151-1157.

--voluntary motor movements (activated by primary motor cortex—anterior to central sulcus). Moving the body is a Front-brain (energy-expending) function, activated by the motor cortex.

--high degree of “attention” to outside world (principally a function of the anterior forebrain—especially right superior frontal gyrus)

--expressing emotion (left anterior forebrain)

--dopamine (a neurotransmitter that says “do it” is primarily in anterior forebrain.

--anterior cingulate gyrus—regarded as the volition and will center (located in anterior forebrain); it causes humans to act. In addition, Front-brainers are innately designed to expend energy whereas Back-brainers conserve it.

--planning—an integral part of taking action and expending energy.

Planning involves maintaining one main goal while working on sub-goals for that main goal. This is apparently one of the unique human brain functions. The National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland has published findings that show that that particular task is performed in the most anterior part of the frontal lobes called the fronto- polar prefrontal cortex. Koechlin et. al, Nature 1999, vol 399(6732) 148-151.


Back brain (B): posterior to central sulcus

--understanding and comprehension of language (processed in left temporal lobe—Wernickes area)

--5 senses (taking in world around self)

--touch and pressure (parietal lobe—which controls the primary sensory cortex.

Behind the primary sensory cortex is a large association area that controls fine sensation—weight, size, shape, etc.)

--smell and sound (temporal lobe)

--sight (occipital lobe)

--long-term memory—stored primarily posterior to central sulcus

--neuroscientists now suspect there are 4 separate memory systems in the brain (rather than one as long believed). Conscious memory of facts and events—hippocampus; associative learning (like Pavlovian conditioning)—cerebellum; emotional memories—amygdala; memories of learned skills—basal ganglia. These are posterior brain regions.

--In Alzheimer’s disease, long-term memory fades as the posterior brain cells die

--self awareness (parietal lobe)

--Back-brainers conserve energy whereas Front-brainers expend it.

--reading (posterior region)

Dr. Kenneth Pugh, Psychiatrist and Medical Researcher at Yale, has been studying the neural pathways which are generated in good readers. When the brain is asked to go from the listening and speaking modes to the visual spatial, yet abstract production of reading, new relationships between regions in the cortex are formed. This is true for all written languages. Skilled readers have engineered neural networks, which take the visual sensory input from "eye to meaning" in about 150 milliseconds. This is done through the dominant path of the eye to three posterior gyrus (areas in the back half of the cortex). The lingual, fusiform and angular gyrus collaborate to convert letters into meaning.


Empirical and Conceptual—measuring the way information is gathered or perceived

Empirical (E): Essentially the 5 senses: sight, smell, sound, taste and touch

--the processing of sensory input and sensory discrimination is facilitated by the parietal lobe.

--5 senses (taking in world around self)

--touch and pressure (parietal lobe—which controls the primary sensory cortex. Behind the primary sensory cortex is a large association area that controls fine sensation—weight, size, shape, etc.)

--smell and sound (temporal lobe)

--sight (occipital)

--viewing and inaudibly reading language (posterior forebrain)

--though most sensing processes take place in the back of the brain, some reside in the brain’s anterior. For example, research demonstrates damage to the right frontal lobe creates an impairment of pictorial stimuli sequences.

--the anterior right forebrain is especially adept at design and spatial fluency in contrast with the left’s verbal fluency.


Conceptual (C): specializing in abstract, ‘intuitive’ matters

--abstract understanding of language—especially w/consonants. (Wernickes, posterior left)

--metaphor—Persons with right forebrain deficit pick literal interpretations of metaphorical statements.

--A striking finding from many who suffer right-brain strokes is that they can understand the literal meaning of sentences--their left brain can still decode the words--but they can no longer get jokes or allusions. Asked to explain even a common proverb, such as "a stitch in time saves nine", they can only say it must have something to do with sewing.

--visual imagery—most aspects of visual imagery are right hemisphere duties.


Inanimate and Animate—measuring the way information is reasoned

Inanimate (I): ‘thinking,’ logical, objective, and systematic reasoning. Inanimate function is found in both hemispheres; the right specializes in spatial logic and the left in verbal and numerical logic.

--synthetic, spatial reasoning is engaged in the posterior right forebrain. For example, damage in right parietal areas results in spatial reasoning deficits.

--verbal logic—principally a function of the left hemisphere, especially in Brocas area. (FEILs and FCILs are the most gifted in oral language logic, FEILs in practical realm and FCILs with abstract.


Animate (A): Animate, subjective, values-driven, and emotional reasoning. Animate function is found in both hemispheres

--sensing and retaining emotion—emotional memory (posterior--amygdala) In the latter 1990’s, PET studies conclusively validated the amygdala’s influence on feelings and emotion.

---expressing emotion—as early as the 1980’s, electroencephalographic studies revealed in patients that the left frontal region showed higher activity during negative emotions.

--a 2002 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences was the first to examine the neurological roots of what scientists call "negative affect," a trait that predisposes people to anxiety, irritability, anger and a range of other unpleasant moods. The researchers conducted brain scans that measured changes in blood flow within their subject’s brains. The scientists found that increased brain activity in one particular region – the ventromedial prefrontal cortex -- was associated with those who reported greater negative affect. Researchers say the circumstantial evidence indicates that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex acts as a sort of volume knob for emotions. While the emotions may be produced elsewhere in the brain in response to stimuli, this region of the brain can make them deafening or muted.


Left brain-dominant and Right brain-dominant—measuring the way we engage the outer world (and hemisphere dominance)

Left brain (L): Structure, organization, seeking closure, local/detailed, methodical, and analytic (step-by-step).

--the Left brain is essentially the critiquing and ‘judging’ hemisphere (unknown to Jung and Myers)

--Left brain performs sequential analysis, approaching matters methodically

--Left brain performs sequential body functions—which are mechanical and sequential

--Left brain is orchestrated to a state of “local” bias

--the Left brain is the conscious hemisphere, more in touch with the moment. It is time driven, clock driven—especially the ELs.


Right brain (R): Adaptable, flexible, open-ended, global/universal, and synthetic (multiple, parallel processor)

--Right brain is principally the ‘perceiving’ hemisphere

--it’s involved in parallel/pattern processing

--Right brain processing is tilted towards the “global”

--performs holistic body functions—which are smooth, graceful

--the Right brain is the subconscious hemisphere; it is has greater difficulty paying attention. This explains why the vast majority of persons diagnosed with ADD are Right-brained dominant. The Right-brainer is process-oriented rather than time/clock driven.

--as reported above, many who suffer right-brain strokes can understand the literal meaning of sentences--their Left brain can still decode the words--but they can no longer get jokes or allusions. An intact Right brain is needed to make the more playful connections.

-- the current assumptions about the relationship between handedness and lateralization are oversimplified. This is especially evident in left handed people who demonstrate use of their "non-dominate hand" in many more activities than right handed people.

A study out of Duke University shows that, if at all possible, our brain will solve tasks by processing information in only one hemisphere. We see this on simple problem solving tasks. However, as the tasks get more complex, the brain will always choose to process by coordinating information between the two hemispheres. Weissman and Banich (2000). Neuropsychology, vol 14(1), 41-59.