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Risk-Takers May Lack Ability to Limit Brain Chemical

Risk-Takers May Lack Ability to Limit Brain Chemical

TUESDAY, Dec. 30 (HealthDay News) -- Just in time for Recent Year's Eve comes research suggesting that "thrill-seeking" behaviors may be hard-wired into the brain.

Specifically, the study suggests that risk-takers -- those people who often engage in impulsive, rule-breaking entanglements with food, drink, drugs, sex, money as well as the similar -- possess fewer so-called dopamine "auto-receptors." These auto-receptors are designed to limit the release of the brain artificial dopamine. As a result, exciting activities typically associated with "feel good" dopamine stimulation trigger higher levels of dopamine release than common -- essentially rewarding as well as encouraging thrill-seeking behavior, the researchers said.

"It starts to suggest that these auto-receptors may be an appropriate target for drug abuse," said lead author David H. Zald, an associate professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. "Of course, we do not yet possess pleasant drugs to target these auto-receptors alone, as well as until there's a proven way to intervene pharmacologically, I would say this is all still hypothetical. But incase you can understand the basic risk factors, you may ultimately be capable to both reduce the risk for drug abuse or, more probably, readily treat people during the withdrawal stage of drug abuse."

Zald went on to say that "if you took away the novelty-seekers, we would be a very boring society. So, I would be very hesitant to describe this type of spontaneous personality as an entirely negative thing. But it is a style that does put people at greater risk for developing troubling drug-abuse problems. As well as now, we've been capable to link this specific personality type with a specific aspect of the dopamine neurotransmitter system."

Zald as well as his colleagues reported on their work, funded by the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse, in the Dec. 31 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.

Building on prior studies with rodents, the researchers examined differences in the neural structure of human risk-takers by analyzing personality-trait questionnaires completed by 34 wholesome adults -- 18 men as well as 16 women, with an average age of about 24.

The participants answered questions about their novelty-seeking tendencies, spontaneity, decision-making speed, as well as rule-breaking inclinations. The researchers then compared the responses to brain scans of the alike participants.

The results: Those who displayed risk-taking traits possessed a smaller number of dopamine auto-receptors in their brains, giving them a relatively weakened ability to control as well as inhibit dopamine release.

Dr. Adam Bisaga, an addiction psychiatrist at the Recent York State Psychiatric Institute, agreed that the findings could help lead to improved addiction treatment.

"The importance of this research is that, hopefully, in the expected, we'll be capable to treat patients better, because we can do some genotyping as well as target treatment better depending on a patient's genetic make-up," Bisaga said. "Probably, dopamine receptor variability is not going to explain all the differences in behavior. It's a little more complicated than that. But this work now gives us at least some biological basis for understanding temperament as well as other personality characteristics."

SOURCES: David H. Zald, Ph.D., associate professor, department of psychology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn.; Adam Bisaga, M.D., associate professor of clinical psychiatry, the College of Physicians as well as Surgeons of Columbia University, as well as research scientist, Recent York State Psychiatric Institute, Recent York City; Dec. 31, 2008, The Journal of Neuroscience

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