TY - JOUR
T1 - Human experience seeking correlates with hippocampus volume
T2 - Convergent evidence from manual tracing and voxel-based morphometry
AU - Martin, Sarah B.
AU - Covell, D. Jeff
AU - Joseph, Jane E.
AU - Chebrolu, Himachandra
AU - Smith, Charles D.
AU - Kelly, Thomas H.
AU - Jiang, Yang
AU - Gold, Brian T.
PY - 2007
Y1 - 2007
N2 - Experience seekers continuously pursue novel environmental stimuli, a tendency linked to genetic variation in mesolimbic dopamine transmission. However, the neuroanatomical basis accompanying these genetic and neurochemical associations is unknown. Animal and human experimental results suggest a central role for the hippocampus in processing novel stimuli. Here, we explored whether differences in human experience seeking are related to variations in hippocampal volume. High-resolution anatomic MR images were analyzed in 40 individuals who ranged from low through high on a validated experience seeking personality scale. Manual tracing analysis demonstrated positive correlation between right hippocampal volumes and scores on the experience seeking scale. A separate voxel-based morphometric analysis confirmed these results and localized the significant increase to the anterior portion of right hippocampal grey matter. We tested and were able to reject the possibility that results were mediated by a personality trait related to, but distinct from, experience seeking. The present data provide the first direct evidence for a relationship between human experience seeking and brain structure. In addition, these results provide new ecologically relevant evidence for a link between right anterior hippocampus and novelty processing.
AB - Experience seekers continuously pursue novel environmental stimuli, a tendency linked to genetic variation in mesolimbic dopamine transmission. However, the neuroanatomical basis accompanying these genetic and neurochemical associations is unknown. Animal and human experimental results suggest a central role for the hippocampus in processing novel stimuli. Here, we explored whether differences in human experience seeking are related to variations in hippocampal volume. High-resolution anatomic MR images were analyzed in 40 individuals who ranged from low through high on a validated experience seeking personality scale. Manual tracing analysis demonstrated positive correlation between right hippocampal volumes and scores on the experience seeking scale. A separate voxel-based morphometric analysis confirmed these results and localized the significant increase to the anterior portion of right hippocampal grey matter. We tested and were able to reject the possibility that results were mediated by a personality trait related to, but distinct from, experience seeking. The present data provide the first direct evidence for a relationship between human experience seeking and brain structure. In addition, these results provide new ecologically relevant evidence for a link between right anterior hippocampus and novelty processing.
KW - Experience seeking
KW - Hippocampus
KW - Novelty detection
KW - Sensation seeking
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=34547450668&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=34547450668&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2007.05.009
DO - 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2007.05.009
M3 - Article
C2 - 17603086
AN - SCOPUS:34547450668
SN - 0028-3932
VL - 45
SP - 2874
EP - 2881
JO - Neuropsychologia
JF - Neuropsychologia
IS - 12
ER -