Microstructural and functional substrates underlying dispositional greed and its link with trait but not state...

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Psychology

Background:

• The relationship between personality traits and impulsivity is well-established.
• The specific link between Greed Personality Traits (GPT) and impulsivity, including time perspective, is under-explored.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the association between Greed Personality Traits (GPT) and impulsivity.
• To explore the mediating role of GPT in the relationship between time perspective and impulsivity.
• To identify the neurobiological underpinnings of GPT and its connection to impulsivity.

Main Methods:

• Utilized questionnaires and an inter-temporal choice task to assess impulsivity and time perspective.
• Collected multi-modal neuroimaging data: resting-state fMRI (n=430), DTI (n=426), and task-based fMRI (n=53).
• Analyzed behavioral, functional, and microstructural data to identify neural correlates.

Main Results:

• GPT mediated the link between present-oriented time perspective and motor impulsivity.
• Brain activation patterns in regions like the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and cerebellum correlated with GPT.
• Distinct spontaneous brain activity patterns (DMN, FPN, VIS) and white matter microstructural characteristics were associated with GPT.
• Neural patterns mediated the pathway: time perspective → GPT → motor impulsivity.

Conclusions:

• Greed Personality Traits play a crucial role in connecting time perspective and impulsivity.
• Specific neural pathways involving brain activation, spontaneous activity, and white matter integrity underlie dispositional greed.
• Findings elucidate a potential psychological and neurobiological pathway: time perspective influences greed, which in turn affects impulsivity.