Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Pilot Study Of Endurance Runners And Brain Responses Associated With Delay Discounting, Laura E. Martin, Jason-Flor V. Sisante, David R. Wilson, Angela A. Moody, Cary R. Savage, Sandra A. Billinger

Center for Brain, Biology, and Behavior: Faculty and Staff Publications

High levels of endurance training have been associated with potentially negative health outcomes and addictive-like symptoms such as exercise in the presence of injury and higher levels of impulsivity. This pilot study examined the relationships among self-report measures of addictive symptoms related to exercise and behavioral and neural measures of impulsivity in endurance runners. We hypothesized endurance runners would have increased preference for immediate rewards and greater activation of cognitive control regions when making decisions involving delayed rewards. Twenty endurance runners (at least 20 miles/week) were recruited to undergo measures of self-report exercise addiction symptoms, impulsive decision-making (delay discounting) and …

Does Gender Moderate Associations Among Impulsivity And Health-Risk Behaviors?, Scott F. Stoltenberg, Brian D. Batien, Denis G. Birgenheir

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

The present study explores the relations among gender, impulsivity and three health-risk behaviors relevant to young adults (tobacco use, alcohol problems and gambling problems) in a sample of 197 college-age individuals. We sought to determine whether impulsivity is associated with health-risk behaviors in the same ways for men and women. For tobacco use and gambling problems, men were at higher risk than women, and impulsivity was not significantly associated with higher risk. Higher levels of motor impulsivity in men accounted for a significant amount of the gender difference in risk for alcohol problems. That is, impulsivity as measured by the …

Patience, Jeffrey R. Stevens, David W. Stephens

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

What is patience? Humans and other animals often make decisions that trade off present and future benefits. Should a monkey eat an unripe fruit or wait for it to ripen? Should I purchase the iPhone at its debut or wait for the price to drop in a few months? In these dilemmas, large gains often require long waits, so decision makers must choose between a smaller, sooner reward and a larger, later reward.

It sometimes makes sense to choose the smaller, sooner alternative, for example in a very rich environment, but in many natural situations, waiting for the larger, later …

Impulsivity And The Reinforcing Value Of Cigarette Smoking, Neal Doran, Dennis E. Mcchargue, Lee Cohen

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

The present study tested the hypothesis that impulsivity would predict perceptions of positive and negative reinforcement from smoking. The secondary hypothesis was that the relationship between impulsivity and smoking reinforcement expectations would be mediated by the character trait of self-directedness. College students (n= 202) who reported smoking cigarettes participated in the survey study. Hierarchical regression analyses confirmed that impulsivity predicted expectations about positive (β = .22, p = .001) and negative (β = .25, p = .001) reinforcement from smoking. These relationships were also mediated by self-directedness. Results suggest that impulsive smokers in the early stages of dependence …

Effect Of Nicotine On Negative Affect Among More Impulsive Smokers, Neal Doran, Dennis E. Mcchargue, Bonnie Springs, Joe Vanderveen, Jessica Werth Cook, Malia Richmond

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

In the present study, the authors tested the hypothesis that nicotine would provide greater relief from negative affect for more impulsive smokers than for less impulsive smokers. Euthymic adult smokers (N = 70) participated in 2 laboratory sessions, during which they underwent a negative mood induction (music x autobiographical memory), then smoked either a nicotinized or de-nicotinized cigarette. Mixed-effects regression yielded a significant Impulsivity x Condition (nicotinized vs. de-nicotinized) x Time interaction. Simple effects analyses showed that heightened impulsivity predicted greater negative affect relief after smoking a nicotinized cigarette but not after smoking a de-nicotinized cigarette. These data suggest …

Possible Association Between Response Inhibition And A Variant In The Brain-Expressed Tryptophan Hydroxylase-2 Gene, Scott F. Stoltenberg, Jennifer M. Glass, Steven T. Chermack, Heather A. Flynn, Sheng Li, Margaret E. Weston, Margit Burmeister

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

The ability to inhibit a response is an important component of normal behavioral control and is an aspect of psychopathology when diminished. Converging evidence implicates the serotonergic neurotransmitter system in response inhibition circuitry.
Objectives — The present study examined potential associations between serotonergic genetic markers and response inhibition as indexed by Stop Task performance.
Methods — College-age participants (N= 199) completed self-report questionnaires, the computerized Stop Task, and donated buccal cells for genetic analyses. Statistics were analyzed by ANOVA.
Results — Stop Signal reaction time was not associated with allelic variation at a monoamine oxidase A promoter length polymorphism or …

Effects Of Temporal Clumping And Payoff Accumulation On Impulsiveness And Cooperation, David W. Stephens, Colleen M. Mclinn, Jeffrey R. Stevens

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Animals show impulsiveness when they prefer a smaller more immediate option, even though a larger more delayed option produces a higher intake rate. This impulsive behavior has implications for several behavioral problems including social cooperation. This paper presents two experiments using captive blue jays (Cyanocitta cristata) that consider the effects of payoff accumulation and temporal clumping on impulsiveness and cooperation. Payoff accumulation refers to a situation where the benefits gained from each choice trial accumulate from one trial to the next, and only become available to the animal after it has completed a fixed number of trials. We …

The Ecology And Evolution Of Patience In Two New World Monkeys, Jeffrey R. Stevens, Elizabeth V. Hallinan, Marc D. Hauser

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Decision making often involves choosing between small, short-term rewards and large, long-term rewards. All animals, humans included, discount future rewards—the present value of delayed rewards is viewed as less than the value of immediate rewards. Despite its ubiquity, there exists considerable but unexplained variation between species in their capacity to wait for rewards—that is, to exert patience or self-control. Using two closely related primates—common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus) and cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus)— we uncover a variable that may explain differences in how species discount future rewards. Both species faced a self-control paradigm in which individuals chose …

Antisocial Alcoholism And Serotonin-Related Polymorphisms: Association Tests, Elizabeth M. Hill, Scott F. Stoltenberg, Katherine Harris Bullard, Sheng Li, Robert A. Zucker, Marget Burmeister

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Central serotonin dysfunction appears to be related to a subtype of alcoholism with antisocial impulsive features (type II; antisocial alcoholism). The serotonergic deficit may be associated with greater impulsivity, which in turn facilitates both alcohol dependence and antisocial behavior. The present study tested association of antisocial impulsive alcoholism with candidate genes related to serotonergic neurotransmission, using families. Eight markers were assayed using polymerase chain reaction: tryptophan hydroxylase (intron 7), the serotonin transporter SLC6A4 (VNTR 9/12), HTTLPR, the three serotonin receptor types HTR1B (G861C), HTR2A (T102C) and HTR2C (Cys23Ser), monoamine oxidase A (T1460C), and (CA)_n. Eligible probands had early …