Stable Traits, Adaptive Brains: links between Visual Homeostatic Plasticity and Personality

This study explores the relationship between personality traits and visual homeostatic plasticity, a neural mechanism maintaining stable the brain activity. Actually, personality may influence neuroplasticity, the general brain ability to adapt through experiences. Indeed, prior research links traits like openness to experience and neuroticism to Hebbian plasticity (experience-based synaptic strengthening), but any connections to homeostatic plasticity remain largely unexplored. To probe homeostatic plasticity we tested the effect of short-term monocular deprivation in 24 healthy adults. Participants wore an eye patch for two hours, and underwent binocular rivalry tests measuring shifts in perceptual dominance. The deprivation index, reflecting homeostatic plasticity in the primary visual cortex, was analysed alongside personality traits assessed via the Big Five Questionnaire. Results revealed a positive correlation between the deprivation index and conscientiousness but a negative correlation with emotional stability. Conscientious individuals, often goal-directed and self-regulated, showed reduced homeostatic plasticity, suggesting diminished mental flexibility. Conversely, higher emotional stability (lower neuroticism) enhanced homeostatic plasticity, aligning with findings that neuroticism reduces resilience, a potential link to impaired plasticity. Overall, the study suggests that homeostatic plasticity, often limited to sensory adaptation, might reflect broader brain regulatory properties that appear to be linked to personality traits.