Sensation Seeking and Cortical Augmenting‐Reducing

Abstract

The experiment was designed to establish the relationship between the Sensation Seeking Scales (SSS) and cortical augmenting‐reducing. Forty‐nine male undergraduate Ss were used. Ss were presented with five intensities of light flashes in randomly presented blocks of trials at each intensity. Averaged evoked response (AER) amplitudes were measured at each intensity of light. Augmenting‐reducing was measured for each S as the slope of the relationship between stimulus intensity and amplitude of response. This slope measure correlated very significantly (r= .59) with the Disinhibition subscale of the SSS and positively, but not significantly, with other subscales. Comparing the low and high scorers on the Disinhibition scale, a significant interaction between groups and stimulus intensities was found but no main effects of stimulus intensity or groups were found. The high Disinhibitors did not differ from the lows at the low stimulus intensities but did differ significantly at the highest intensity where the lows showed a marked reducing tendency. The results show an interesting convergence between the Disinhibition type of sensation seeking, manic tendencies, and the AER.

Contribution of the Roman rat lines/strains to personality neuroscience: neurobehavioral modeling of internalizing/externalizing psychopathologies

“…1. In the RHA and RLA strains, HPC and AMY volume positively correlate with behavioral inhibition in anxietyrelated tests (Río-Álamos et al, 2017), consistent with what has been reported between a BIS measure (Torrubia et al, 2001) (Zuckerman et al, 1974;Siegel et al, 1993;Siegel & Driscoll, 1996). 6.…”

“…This makes RLA (vs. RHA) rats a translatable model to study innate differences in, and mechanisms of “frustration tolerance”, vulnerability to negative emotion-induced self-medication (and substance use/abuse) and neurobehavioral mechanisms mediating resilience to loss-induced anxiety/frustration. Excessive anxiety of RLA rats in different tests/tasks is attenuated by anxiolytic drugs and increased by known anxiogenic drugs (see Supplementary Table in Fernández-Teruel et al, 2021). Augmenting of cortical visual-evoked potentials (VEPs) is considered a specific neurophysiological marker of high sensation-novelty seeking (and disinhibited) personality in humans. Remarkably, similar to what has been observed in disinhibited sensation-novelty seeker humans and cats, the RHA rats are cortical VEP augmenters, whereas RLA and Wistar rats are VEP-reducers like non-disinhibited humans (Zuckerman et al, 1974; Siegel et al, 1993; Siegel & Driscoll, 1996). Novelty seeking in RHA/RLA rats is inversely associated with postsynaptic dopamine D2 receptor availability in striatum, and similar findings have been reported in humans (reviewed by Giorgi et al, 2019).…”

Personality and Augmenting/Reducing (A/R) in auditory event-related potentials (ERPs) during emotional visual stimulation

“…In addition, consistently with Eysenck’s theory of extraversion and arousal 22 , augmenting has been associated with the personality traits of extraversion and, conversely, reducing with introversion 23 . Consistent with these findings, augmenters of the ERPs tend to be high sensation seekers, and reducers tend to be sensation avoiders 13 16 17 24 25 26 27 . Augmenting of the auditory N1/P2 amplitude has been suggested to reflect low central serotonergic neurotransmission, and vice versa 15 , a finding which appears in line with observations that responders to antidepressant or prophylactic medication are augmenters, whereas non-responders tend to be reducers 14 15 28 29 .…”

“…Moreover, RST theory predicts that highly approach-oriented (i.e., high BAS) individuals should be augmenters of N1 and P2 waves of the ERPs in response to increased levels of auditory stimulus intensity. This hypothesis is supported by a number of personality findings showing that high scores on action-oriented personality traits, such as sensation seeking, extraversion, and impulsivity, are associated with higher ASF of the auditory and visual ERPs 19 26 38 . Although, ERP correlates of BAS and its facets are reported in another study 39 , here we enclosed a measure of sensation seeking 40 to report our ERP-A/R correlates of sensation seeking.…”

Cortical Mechanisms that Augment or Reduce Evoked Potentials in Cats

“…Other individuals whose EP amplitudes show smaller increases or even decreases with increasing flash intensity are defined as reducers. Several neurophysiological mechanisms for EP reducing have been proposed, including a stimulus intensity control system (1) and a negative feedback loop inhibiting the ascending reticular activating system (3).…”