Review

Authors: Yu Ohmura, Iku Tsutsui-Kimura, Mitsuhiro Yoshioka...

Higher impulsivity is thought to be a risk factor for drug addiction, criminal involvement, and suicide. Excessive levels of impulsivity are often observed in several psychiatric disorders including attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and schizophrenia. Previous studies have demonstrated that nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) are involved in impulsive behavior. Here, we introduce recent advances in this field and describe the role of the following nAChR-related brain mechanisms in modulating impulsive behavior: dopamine release in the ventral striatum; α4β2 nAChRs in the infralimbic cortex, which is a ventral part of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC); and dopamine release in the mPFC. We also suggest several potential therapeutic drugs to address these mechanisms in impulsivity-related disorders and explore future directions to further elucidate the roles of central nAChRs in impulsive behavior.

Topics: Animals; Basal Ganglia; Dopamine; Dopamine Agents; Humans; Impulsive Behavior; Prefrontal Cortex; Receptors, Nicotinic

PubMed: 22447304
DOI: 10.1254/jphs.11r06cr

Authors: Anthony R Isles, Catharine A Winstanley, Trevor Humby...

Our willingness to take risks, our ability to wait or the speed with which to make decisions are central features of our personality. However, it is now recognized that impulsive and risk-taking behaviours are not a unitary construct, and different aspects can be both psychologically and neurally dissociated. The range of neurochemicals and brain systems that govern these behaviours is extensive, and this may be a contributing factor to the phenotypic range seen in the human population. However, this variety can also be pathological as extremes in risk-taking and impulsive behaviours are characteristics of many neuropsychiatric and indeed neurodegenerative disorders. This spans obsessive-compulsive disorder, where behaviour becomes ridged and non-spontaneous, to the nonsensical risk-taking seen in gambling and drug taking. This article is part of the theme issue 'Risk taking and impulsive behaviour: fundamental discoveries, theoretical perspectives and clinical implications'.

Topics: Decision Making; Humans; Impulsive Behavior; Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder; Risk-Taking

PubMed: 30966916
DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2018.0128

Review

Authors: Alicia Izquierdo, J David Jentsch

BACKGROUND

Our ability to measure the cognitive components of complex decision-making across species has greatly facilitated our understanding of its neurobiological mechanisms. One task in particular, reversal learning, has proven valuable in assessing the inhibitory processes that are central to executive control. Reversal learning measures the ability to actively suppress reward-related responding and to disengage from ongoing behavior, phenomena that are biologically and descriptively related to impulsivity and compulsivity. Consequently, reversal learning could index vulnerability for disorders characterized by impulsivity such as proclivity for initial substance abuse as well as the compulsive aspects of dependence.

OBJECTIVE

Though we describe common variants and similar tasks, we pay particular attention to discrimination reversal learning, its supporting neural circuitry, neuropharmacology and genetic determinants. We also review the utility of this task in measuring impulsivity and compulsivity in addictions.

METHODS

We restrict our review to instrumental, reward-related reversal learning studies as they are most germane to addiction.

CONCLUSION

The research reviewed here suggests that discrimination reversal learning may be used as a diagnostic tool for investigating the neural mechanisms that mediate impulsive and compulsive aspects of pathological reward-seeking and -taking behaviors. Two interrelated mechanisms are posited for the neuroadaptations in addiction that often translate to poor reversal learning: frontocorticostriatal circuitry dysregulation and poor dopamine (D2 receptor) modulation of this circuitry. These data suggest new approaches to targeting inhibitory control mechanisms in addictions.

Topics: Behavior, Addictive; Biogenic Monoamines; Brain; Compulsive Behavior; Decision Making; Humans; Impulsive Behavior; Inhibition, Psychological; Models, Neurological; Neural Pathways; Reversal Learning

PubMed: 22134477
DOI: 10.1007/s00213-011-2579-7

Authors:

Topics: Humans; Neurodevelopmental Disorders; Impulsive Behavior; Inhibition, Psychological

PubMed: 36394910
DOI: 10.1111/dmcn.15451

Review

Authors: Gail M Rosenbaum, Catherine A Hartley

Epidemiological data suggest that risk taking in the real world increases from childhood into adolescence and declines into adulthood. However, developmental patterns of behaviour in laboratory assays of risk taking and impulsive choice are inconsistent. In this article, we review a growing literature using behavioural economic approaches to understand developmental changes in risk taking and impulsivity. We present findings that have begun to elucidate both the cognitive and neural processes that contribute to risky and impulsive choice, as well as how age-related changes in these neurocognitive processes give rise to shifts in choice behaviour. We highlight how variability in task parameters can be used to identify specific aspects of decision contexts that may differentially influence risky and impulsive choice behaviour across development. This article is part of the theme issue 'Risk taking and impulsive behaviour: fundamental discoveries, theoretical perspectives and clinical implications'.

Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Age Factors; Child; Child, Preschool; Decision Making; Humans; Impulsive Behavior; Risk-Taking; Young Adult

PubMed: 30966918
DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2018.0133

Authors: Aviva Abosch, Akshay Gupte, Lynn E Eberly...

BACKGROUND

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a degenerative brain disorder accompanied by the loss of dopaminergic neurons and the presence of motor and non-motor symptoms.

OBJECTIVE

We performed a cross-sectional, questionnaire-based analysis of impulsive behavior in our PD clinic population to assess prevalence and associated characteristics.

RESULTS

We found a higher prevalence of impulsive behavior (29.7%) than previously reported, and found multiple, concurrent impulsive behaviors in 26% of subjects reporting impulsive behavior.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings contribute to the growing awareness of impulsive behavior in PD, and support the need for longitudinal studies to assess changes in impulsive behaviors in Parkinson's patients.

Topics: Age Distribution; Age of Onset; Aged; Causality; Comorbidity; Cross-Sectional Studies; Dopamine; Dopamine Agents; Female; Humans; Impulsive Behavior; Interview, Psychological; Male; Minnesota; Parkinson Disease; Prevalence; Sex Distribution; Surveys and Questionnaires

PubMed: 21300194
DOI: 10.1016/j.psym.2010.11.013

Review

Authors: J W Dalley, J P Roiser

Impulsive people have a strong urge to act without thinking. It is sometimes regarded as a positive trait but rash impulsiveness is also widely present in clinical disorders such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), drug dependence, mania, and antisocial behaviour. Contemporary research has begun to make major inroads into unravelling the brain mechanisms underlying impulsive behaviour with a prominent focus on the limbic cortico-striatal systems. With this progress has come the understanding that impulsivity is a multi-faceted behavioural trait involving neurally and psychologically diverse elements. We discuss the significance of this heterogeneity for clinical disorders expressing impulsive behaviour and the pivotal contribution made by the brain dopamine and serotonin systems in the aetiology and treatment of behavioural syndromes expressing impulsive symptoms.

Topics: Animals; Brain; Dopamine; Humans; Impulsive Behavior; Serotonin

PubMed: 22542672
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2012.03.065

Review

Authors: Roger Kobak, Kristyn Zajac, Clare Smith...

Adolescents' trajectories of impulsive and hostile behaviors provide a dynamic index of risk for the emergence of Cluster B (antisocial and borderline) personality disorders in early adulthood. In the current study, we tested the hypothesis that preoccupied states of mind in the Adult Attachment Interview would increase both the level and rate of growth in adolescents' trajectories of aggressive and sexual risk-taking behaviors measured at ages 13, 15, and 17. Overall, preoccupied states of mind predicted higher levels of sexual risk taking and aggressive behaviors across all three assessments as well as higher rates of growth in sexual-risk taking and caregiver-reported aggression over time. In addition, preoccupied females showed slower rates of decline in self-reported hostile emotions than did preoccupied males. The effects of gender as a moderator of the relations between preoccupied status and risk trajectories for personality disorders are discussed.

Topics: Adolescent; Adolescent Behavior; Aggression; Aging; Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; Female; Hostility; Humans; Impulsive Behavior; Male; Sex Characteristics

PubMed: 19583886
DOI: 10.1017/S0954579409000455

Review

Authors: William R Lovallo

Altered reactivity to stress, either in the direction of exaggerated reactivity or diminished reactivity, may signal a dysregulation of systems intended to maintain homeostasis and a state of good health. Evidence has accumulated that diminished reactivity to psychosocial stress may signal poor health outcomes. One source of diminished cortisol and autonomic reactivity is the experience of adverse rearing during childhood and adolescence. The Oklahoma Family Health Patterns Project has examined a cohort of 426 healthy young adults with and without a family history of alcoholism. Regardless of family history, persons who had experienced high degrees of adversity prior to age 16 had a constellation of changes including reduced cortisol and heart rate reactivity, diminished cognitive capacity, and unstable regulation of affect, leading to behavioral impulsivity and antisocial tendencies. We present a model whereby this constellation of physiological, cognitive, and affective tendencies is consistent with altered central dopaminergic activity leading to changes in brain function that may foster impulsive and risky behaviors. These in turn may promote greater use of alcohol other drugs along with adopting poor health behaviors. This model provides a pathway from early life adversity to low stress reactivity that forms a basis for risky behaviors and poor health outcomes.

Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Female; Health Behavior; Humans; Hydrocortisone; Impulsive Behavior; Life Change Events; Male; Stress, Psychological; Young Adult

PubMed: 23085387
DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2012.10.006

Review

Authors: Robert J R Blair

This selective review provides a model of the neurobiology of impulsive aggression from a cognitive neuroscience perspective. It is argued that prototypical cases of impulsive aggression, those associated with anger, involve the recruitment of the acute threat response system structures; that is, the amygdala, hypothalamus, and periaqueductal gray. It is argued that whether the recruitment of these structures results in impulsive aggression or not reflects the functional roles of ventromedial frontal cortex and dorsomedial frontal and anterior insula cortex in response selection. It is also argued that impulsive aggression may occur because of impaired decision making. The aggression may not be accompanied by anger, but it will reflect disrupted evaluation of the rewards/benefits of the action.

Topics: Aggression; Brain; Humans; Impulsive Behavior; Neurobiology

PubMed: 26465707
DOI: 10.1089/cap.2015.0088