Vigilance and personality: neuroticism and sensation seeking as important markers for emotional psychopathologies

Various personality traits are associated with different emotional psychopathologies. For instance neuroticism (N) is an important long term marker for depression and sensation seeking behaviour is associated with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) or mania. One of the core symptoms of many of these psychopathologies and depression, ADHD and mania in particular is a dysfunctional sleep-wake and thus vigilance regulation. In the current study we investigated the relationship between EEG-vigilance, N and sensation seeking to examine if vigilance regulation may help to understand how personality traits can translate into psychopathologies. We recorded a 20 minute resting EEG of 125 healthy volunteers with no history of psychiatric disorders and no current health problems. Consecutive 1-second EEG-segments were classified into six distinct EEG-vigilance stages, N was assessed using the NEO-PIR and sensation seeking was measured using the AISS. Both N and sensation seeking showed significant correlations with EEG-vigilance. N was positively correlated with lower vigilance stages and negatively with higher stages, sensation seeking vice versa. Significant correlations of subscales were N-Depression and both AISS subscales Impulsivity and Novelty. The findings show that vigilance regulation is indeed associated with personality traits and may play a role in the complex relationship of psychopathology, personality and sleep-wake regulation.