Abstract
Impulsivity is the tendency to act without forethought. It is a personality trait commonly used in the diagnosis of many psychiatric diseases. In clinical practice, impulsivity is estimated using written questionnaires. However, answers to questions might be subject to personal biases and misinterpretations. In order to alleviate this problem, eye movements could be used to study differences in decision processes related to impulsivity. Therefore, we investigated correlations between impulsivity scores obtained with a questionnaire in healthy subjects and characteristics of their anticipatory eye movements in a simple smooth pursuit task. Healthy subjects were asked to answer the UPPS questionnaire (Urgency Premeditation Perseverance and Sensation seeking Impulsive Behavior scale), which distinguishes four independent dimensions of impulsivity: Urgency, lack of Premeditation, lack of Perseverance, and Sensation seeking. The same subjects took part in an oculomotor task that consisted of pursuing a target that moved in a predictable direction. This task reliably evoked anticipatory saccades and smooth eye movements. We found that eye movement characteristics such as latency and velocity were significantly correlated with UPPS scores. The specific correlations between distinct UPPS factors and oculomotor anticipation parameters support the validity of the UPPS construct and corroborate neurobiological explanations for impulsivity. We suggest that the oculomotor approach of impulsivity put forth in the present study could help bridge the gap between psychiatry and physiology.
Highlights
Impulsivity describes one’s tendency to act without forethought
If impulsivity is connected with the basic neurological processes underlying prediction, we expect that it should be correlated with anticipatory eye movements that depend on prediction
Impulsivity and anticipatory eye movements A total of 12 081 pursuit trials were recorded (n = 24 subjects)
Summary
Impulsivity describes one’s tendency to act without forethought. It is a personality trait that profoundly influences one’s behavior and can be an indicator of the development of several psychiatric diseases [1]. To organize behavior and allow some degree of anticipation of future events, the brain needs to make predictions based on information received from sensory organs. From these predictions emerges a representation of how one’s action may influence the world [2]. A specific example of the brain making predictions based on the repetition of a task is the generation of anticipatory eye movements in response to a moving target. If impulsivity is connected with the basic neurological processes underlying prediction, we expect that it should be correlated with anticipatory eye movements that depend on prediction. The aim of this paper is to study the relationship between impulsivity and anticipatory eye movements, i.e. saccades and smooth pursuit
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