Normal Impulsivity: A Cognitive Neuroscience Analysis

描述（由申请人提供）：这项探索性的R21资助申请旨在建立研究范式，并取得初步进展，了解冲动性人格特质个体差异的神经基础。鉴于冲动性人格与包括吸毒在内的消极健康行为之间的关系，更好地了解这种人格特质将具有相当大的公共卫生价值。关于正常人格如何反映在大脑中，我们所知相对较少。我们所知道的大部分都与神经化学有关，而不是认知神经科学中典型的“摩尔”系统水平。因此，本申请的总体目标是将冲动性的正常变化与在该描述的“摩尔”水平上的脑功能的变化相关联，即，根据功能性描绘的脑区域的大规模网络。首席研究员的初步工作表明，在这一分析水平上，可以发现个性冲动和大脑功能之间的系统关系。正常受试者在一系列行为任务中的表现显示，冲动性的一种常见测量方法与前额叶皮层（PFC）的功能之间存在很强的关联。本研究的具体目标是：（1）超越对前额叶皮层功能的整体描述，发现前额叶皮层的哪些子系统与冲动性的人格差异有关;（2）超越冲动性的单一概念，考虑其他几个著名的冲动性的神经基础（和不相关的）冲动性的测量;（3）收集假设驱动和探索性功能MRI数据，以检验目标1和2产生的假设，关于大脑功能的差异是冲动的正常人格特征的基础，并探索大脑激活的差异与冲动有关的各种方式。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This exploratory R21 grant application is intended to establish research paradigms for, and make preliminary progress toward, understanding the neural bases of individual differences in the personality trait of impulsivity. Given the demonstrated relation between impulsive personality and negative health behavior, including drug use, a better understanding of this personality trait would be of considerable public health value. Relatively little is known about how normal personality is reflected in the brain. Most of what we do know relates to neurochemistry, as opposed to the more "molar" systems level typical of cognitive neuroscience. As such, the overall goal of this application is to relate normal variation in impulsivity to variation in brain function at this "molar" level of description, that is, in terms of large-scale networks of functionally delineated brain regions. Preliminary work by the principal investigator suggests that systematic relationships can be found between personality impulsivity and brain function at this level of analysis. Normal subjects' performance on a battery of behavioral tasks showed a strong association between a common measure of impulsivity and the functions of prefrontal cortex (PFC). The specific aims of this research are: (1) to go beyond global descriptions of PFC function, to discover which subsystem(s) of PFC are related to personality differences in impulsivity; (2) to go beyond a single conception of impulsivity, to consider the neural bases of several other well-known (and uncorrelated) measures of impulsivity; (3) to gather both hypothesis-driven and exploratory functional MRI data, for purposes of testing hypotheses generated from Aims 1 and 2, concerning the differences in brain function that underlie the normal personality trait of impulsivity, and for exploring the various ways in which differences in brain activation could relate to impulsivity.