title: The Role of Social Novelty in Risk Seeking and Exploratory Behavior: Implications for Addictions.
abstract: Novelty preference or sensation seeking is associated with disorders of addiction and predicts rodent compulsive drug use and adolescent binge drinking in humans. Novelty has also been shown to influence choice in the context of uncertainty and reward processing. Here we introduce a novel or familiar neutral face stimuli and investigate its influence on risk-taking choices in healthy volunteers. We focus on behavioural outcomes and imaging correlates to the prime that might predict risk seeking. We hypothesized that subjects would be more risk seeking following a novel relative to familiar stimulus. We adapted a risk-taking task involving acceptance or rejection of a 50:50 choice of gain or loss that was preceded by a familiar (pre-test familiarization) or novel face prime. Neutral expression faces of males and females were used as primes. Twenty-four subjects were first tested behaviourally and then 18 scanned using a different variant of the same task under functional MRI. We show enhanced risk taking to both gain and loss anticipation following novel relative to familiar images and particularly for the low gain condition. Greater risk taking behaviour and self-reported exploratory behaviours was predicted by greater right ventral putaminal activity to novel versus familiar contexts. Social novelty appears to have a contextually enhancing effect on augmenting risky choices possibly mediated via ventral putaminal dopaminergic activity. Our findings link the observation that novelty preference and sensation seeking are important traits predicting the initiation and maintenance of risky behaviours, including substance and behavioural addictions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom.|Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, Cambridge, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Simon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mitchell
authors.affiliation: Human Motor Control Section, NINDS, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America.|Alpert Medical School of Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, United States of America.
authors.forename: Jennifer
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.affiliation: Human Motor Control Section, NINDS, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States of America.
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hallett
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom.|Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, Cambridge, United Kingdom.|Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Valerie
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Voon
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D016739:Behavior, Addictive / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000209:etiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D001931:Brain Mapping; D005106:Exploratory Behavior; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011930:Reaction Time; D021641:Recognition, Psychology; D012201:Reward; D012309:Risk-Taking