Here’s a good reason to catch up with your mates over Christmas and New Year: Certain parts of the brain are bigger and work better in people who have lots of friends.
And the more sociable you are, the bigger the boost to your brain.
This finding comes from Oxford University scientists, who asked volunteers how many friends they had met, spoken to on the phone or emailed in the past month.
The average number of friends contacted was around 20, with some people getting in touch with 40 people.
The researchers then scanned the brains of the volunteers and found around half a dozen regions of the brain were bigger in the people who were more sociable.
The areas that increased in size included one that is used to work out how other people think and feel.
The researchers also believe because sociable people use certain regions more often during the course of maintaining friendships, those parts of the brain grow to keep up with the demand on them.
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