Citation

Rao LL, Zhou Y, Zheng D, Yang LQ, Li S. Psychol. Sci. 2018; 29(10): 1679-1691.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Association for Psychological Science, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1177/0956797618779961

PMID

30028645

Abstract

Excessive risk-taking behaviors have been implicated as a potential endophenotype for substance use disorders and psychopathological gambling. However, the genetic and environmental influences on risk taking and the risk-related brain activations remain unclear. This study investigated the heritability of risk taking and the genetic influence on individual variation in risk-related brain activation. The Balloon Analogue Risk Task was used to assess individuals' risk-taking behavior. In a sample of 244 pairs of young adult twins, we found that there was a moderate heritability (41%) of risk taking. Using voxel-level analysis, we found a moderate genetic influence on risk-related brain activation. We also found a moderate genetic correlation between risk-taking behavior and risk-related brain activation in the left insula, right striatum, and right superior parietal lobule in the active-choice condition. The present study provides important evidence for the genetic correlation between risk-taking behavior and risk-related brain activation.

Language: en

Keywords

Balloon Analogue Risk Task; fMRI; heritability; risk taking; twin study