cheat

How to lose friends and alienate people by disrupting the brain

edyong | December 1, 2009

Oscar Wilde once said, "One can survive everything nowadays, except death, and live down anything, except a good reputation." All well and witty, but for those of us who aren't Victorian cads, reputation matters. It's the bedrock that our social lives are built upon and people go to great lengths to build and maintain a solid one. A new study shows that our ability to do this involves the right half of our brain, and particularly an area called the lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC). Disrupting the neurons in this area hampers a person's ability to build a reputation while playing psychological…