The relation between brain monoamine transporters and personality measures of neuroticism and extraversion: A positron emission tomography study in social anxiety disorder patients and healthy controls
2020 (English)Independent thesis Advanced level (professional degree), 20 credits / 30 HE credits
Student thesisAlternative title
Relationen mellan monoamintransportörer och personlighetsdimensionerna neuroticism and extraversion : En positronemissionstomografistudie av patienter med social ångest och friska kontroller (Swedish)
Abstract [en]
Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is one of the most common psychiatric syndromes. Positron emission tomography (PET) research has identified several interesting directions in trying to understand the disorder, for example connections between SAD and the transporter proteins for serotonin (SERT) and dopamine (DAT) in specific brain regions. Other studies have identified distinctive personality types in SAD and the neural correlates of certain personality traits may to some degree overlap with the expression of neurochemicals in brain regions of interest (ROIs) in SAD. This PET study examined how SERT and DAT availability relates to the personality dimensions extraversion and neuroticism in SAD patients (n=27) and healthy controls (n=43). Multiple regression analyses were performed and sex, age, group (SAD vs. controls) and covariance with the other personality dimension were statistically controlled for. In the whole sample, extraversion was predictive of DAT availability in the amygdala. No significant relations were found for SERT and no significant group differences were found. These results suggest that the density of dopamine neurons in striatal and limbic areas of the brain has an impact on personality phenotype and that this is not specific only to SAD patients. Thus, DAT availability may to some extent be related to personality organization in general.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2020.
Keywords [en]
Monoamine, Serotonin, Dopamine, SAD, Neuroticism, Extraversion, Big Five, Personality
National Category
Psychology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-457878OAI: oai:DiVA.org:uu-457878DiVA, id: diva2:1608401
Educational program
Psykologprogrammet
Supervisors
Examiners
2023-03-032021-11-032023-03-03Bibliographically approved