Institute of Neurosciences, Université Catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium.
PLoS One. 2011;6(10):e26699. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0026699. Epub 2011 Oct 26.
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.
冲动性是指行动前缺乏思考的倾向。它是一种人格特质，常用于许多精神疾病的诊断。在临床实践中，冲动性是通过书面问卷来评估的。然而，问题的答案可能受到个人偏见和误解的影响。为了解决这个问题，可以使用眼球运动来研究与冲动性相关的决策过程差异。因此，我们研究了健康受试者在简单的平滑追踪任务中，通过问卷获得的冲动性评分与他们预期眼球运动特征之间的相关性。健康受试者被要求回答 UPPS 问卷（急迫性、预谋性、毅力和寻求刺激冲动行为量表），该问卷区分了冲动性的四个独立维度：急迫性、缺乏预谋、缺乏毅力和寻求刺激。同一组受试者参与了一个眼球运动任务，该任务包括追踪一个以可预测方向移动的目标。这个任务可靠地引起了预期的眼跳和平滑的眼球运动。我们发现，眼球运动特征，如潜伏期和速度，与 UPPS 评分显著相关。特定的 UPPS 因素与眼动预期参数之间的相关性支持 UPPS 结构的有效性，并证实了冲动性的神经生物学解释。我们建议，本研究中提出的冲动性眼动方法可以帮助弥合精神病学和生理学之间的差距。
