Norbury, AE; (2015) Brain mechanisms underlying sensation-seeking in humans. Doctoral thesis , UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

Sensation-seeking is a personality trait concerned with motivation for intense and unusual sensory experiences, that has been identified as risk factor for a variety of psychopathologies with high social cost; in particular gambling and substance addictions. It has previously proved difficult to tease out neural mechanisms underlying sensation-seeking in humans, due to a lack of cognitive-behavioural paradigms probing sensation-seeking-like behaviour in the lab. The first aim of this thesis was to develop such a behavioural paradigm. Within, we present evidence from this novel task and a combination of psychopharmacological, functional imaging and computational approaches to argue that sensation-seeking behaviour in humans is driven by inter-individual differences in the activation of dopaminergic approach-withdrawal tendencies, when faced with the opportunity to experience intense and unusual sensory stimulation. In a parallel research stream, we investigate the relationship between self-reported sensation-seeking, D2-type dopamine receptor function and risky decision-making, motivated by the common implication of sensation-seeking personality and D2ergic drugs in disorders involving excessive risk-taking. Together, the findings presented here may aid investigation of various psychopathologies for which more extreme sensation-seeking scores constitute a vulnerability factor. In particular, a more precise understanding of sensation-seeking behaviour might aid in the identification of at-risk individuals and the development of individualised therapies and prevention strategies.

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