After our April 2nd event and the strenuous discussion there about the difficulties in acclimenting oneself into the proper group I decided yo spend some time researching the psychological and neurological aspects of our sport and I found this article which may be of interest to some.

"WASHINGTON — Everyone knows that C, C- and C+ riders and the faster B, B+ and A riders have differences as to their intelligence, their personalities and how they lead their lives.

Before no one could explain these differences – but now scientists have shown that their brains are actually built differently. The C rider group has more gray matter in a part of the brain associated with understanding complexity, while the B, A rider brain is bigger in the section related to processing fear, said the study on Thursday in Current Biology.
"We found that greater enjoyment of riding was associated with increased gray matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex, whereas the B and A riders’ lesser intelligence and greater aggressivenes and disagruntlement was associated with increased volume of the right amygdala," the study said.

Other research has shown greater brain activity in those areas, according to which riding category a person follows, but this is the first study to show a physical difference in size in the same regions. "Previously, some psychological traits were known to be predictive of an individual's riding orientation," said Ryota Kanai of the University College London, where the research took place.

"Our study now links such personality traits with specific brain structure." The study was based on 90 "healthy young adults" who reported their riding preferences of one to five from very moderate to very fast, then agreed to have their brains scanned.

People with a large amygdala are "more sensitive to disgust" and tend to "respond to threatening situations with more aggression than do the C rider type and are more sensitive to threatening facial expressions," the study said.
The individuals in the C rider category are linked to larger anterior cingulate cortexes, a region that "monitor(s) uncertainty and conflicts," it said.
"Thus, it is conceivable that individuals with a larger ACC have a higher capacity to tolerate uncertainty and conflicts, allowing them to accept more meandering views."
It remains unclear whether the structural differences cause the divergence in riding and intelligence, or are the effect of them.
But the central issue in determining riding preference appears to revolve around fear and how it affects a person.
"Our findings are consistent with the proposal that riding orientation is associated with psychological processes for managing fear and uncertainty,"