A translational behavioral model of mood-based impulsivity: Implications for substance abuse.

BACKGROUND: Laboratory tasks that measure various facets of impulsivity derived from self-report questionnaires are important for elucidating the behavioral consequences of impulsivity in humans and for back-translating these facets to non-human species. Negative urgency, or mood-based rash action, is a self-report facet of impulsivity linked to problem substance use; however, a valid behavioral task is lacking.

METHODS: The current studies were designed to bridge self-report questionnaire and behavioral measures of negative urgency in humans and to determine if this could be back-translated to rats.

RESULTS: Humans scoring high in negative urgency showed greater behavioral responding and increased frustration following unexpected reward omission on a monetary-based task compared to subjects low in negative urgency. Rats also showed elevated responding for either sucrose pellets or intravenous amphetamine following unexpected reward omission.

CONCLUSION: These results suggest that impulsive behavior engendered by unexpected reward omission may represent a valid behavioral model of negative urgency linked to substance abuse.