Open Peer Commentary Depue & Collins: Neurobiology of personality
Dopamine and serotonin: Integrating current affective engagement with longer-term goals
Leonard D. Katz a1 a1 Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, E39-245, Cambridge, MA 02139
lkatz@mit.edu
Abstract
Interpreting VTA dopamine activity as a facilitator of
affective engagement fits Depue & Collins's agency
dimension of extraverted personality and also Watson's and
Tellegen's (1985) engagement dimension of state mood. Serotonin,
by turning down the gain on dopaminergic affective engagement, would
permit already prepotent responses or habits to prevail against the
behavior-switching incentive-simulation-driven temptations of the
moment facilitated by fickle VTA DA. Intelligent switching between
openly responsive affective engagement and constraint by long-term
plans, goals, or values presumably involves environment-sensitive
balancing of these neuromodulators, such as socially dominant primates
may show.
