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The role of serotonin in personality inference: tryptophan depletion impairs the identification of neuroticism in the face

Serotonergic mechanisms mediate the expression of personality traits (such as impulsivity, aggression and anxiety) that are linked to vulnerability to psychological illnesses, and modulate the identification of emotional expressions in the face as well as learning about broader classes of appetitive...

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Autores principales: Ward, Robert, Sreenivas, Shubha, Read, Judi, Saunders, Kate E. A., Rogers, Robert D.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5486943/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28488040
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00213-017-4619-4
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author Ward, Robert
Sreenivas, Shubha
Read, Judi
Saunders, Kate E. A.
Rogers, Robert D.
author_facet Ward, Robert
Sreenivas, Shubha
Read, Judi
Saunders, Kate E. A.
Rogers, Robert D.
author_sort Ward, Robert
collection PubMed
description Serotonergic mechanisms mediate the expression of personality traits (such as impulsivity, aggression and anxiety) that are linked to vulnerability to psychological illnesses, and modulate the identification of emotional expressions in the face as well as learning about broader classes of appetitive and aversive signals. Faces with neutral expressions signal a variety of socially relevant information, such that inferences about the big five personality traits, including Neuroticism, Extraversion and Agreeableness, can be accurately made on the basis of emotionally neutral facial photographs. Given the close link between Neuroticism and psychological distress, we investigated the effects of diminished central serotonin activity (achieved by tryptophan depletion) upon the accuracy of 52 healthy (non-clinical) adults’ discriminations of personality from facial characteristics. All participants were able to discriminate reliably four of the big five traits. However, the tryptophan-depleted participants were specifically less accurate in discriminating Neuroticism than the matched non-depleted participants. These data suggest that central serotonin activity modulates the identification of not only negative facial emotional expression but also a broader class of signals about personality characteristics linked to psychological distress.
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spelling pubmed-54869432017-07-17 The role of serotonin in personality inference: tryptophan depletion impairs the identification of neuroticism in the face Ward, Robert Sreenivas, Shubha Read, Judi Saunders, Kate E. A. Rogers, Robert D. Psychopharmacology (Berl) Original Investigation Serotonergic mechanisms mediate the expression of personality traits (such as impulsivity, aggression and anxiety) that are linked to vulnerability to psychological illnesses, and modulate the identification of emotional expressions in the face as well as learning about broader classes of appetitive and aversive signals. Faces with neutral expressions signal a variety of socially relevant information, such that inferences about the big five personality traits, including Neuroticism, Extraversion and Agreeableness, can be accurately made on the basis of emotionally neutral facial photographs. Given the close link between Neuroticism and psychological distress, we investigated the effects of diminished central serotonin activity (achieved by tryptophan depletion) upon the accuracy of 52 healthy (non-clinical) adults’ discriminations of personality from facial characteristics. All participants were able to discriminate reliably four of the big five traits. However, the tryptophan-depleted participants were specifically less accurate in discriminating Neuroticism than the matched non-depleted participants. These data suggest that central serotonin activity modulates the identification of not only negative facial emotional expression but also a broader class of signals about personality characteristics linked to psychological distress. Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2017-05-09 2017 /pmc/articles/PMC5486943/ /pubmed/28488040 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00213-017-4619-4 Text en © The Author(s) 2017 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
spellingShingle Original Investigation
Ward, Robert
Sreenivas, Shubha
Read, Judi
Saunders, Kate E. A.
Rogers, Robert D.
The role of serotonin in personality inference: tryptophan depletion impairs the identification of neuroticism in the face
title The role of serotonin in personality inference: tryptophan depletion impairs the identification of neuroticism in the face
title_full The role of serotonin in personality inference: tryptophan depletion impairs the identification of neuroticism in the face
title_fullStr The role of serotonin in personality inference: tryptophan depletion impairs the identification of neuroticism in the face
title_full_unstemmed The role of serotonin in personality inference: tryptophan depletion impairs the identification of neuroticism in the face
title_short The role of serotonin in personality inference: tryptophan depletion impairs the identification of neuroticism in the face
title_sort role of serotonin in personality inference: tryptophan depletion impairs the identification of neuroticism in the face
topic Original Investigation
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5486943/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28488040
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00213-017-4619-4
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