Mild head injury and sympathetic arousal: Investigating relationships with decision-making and neuropsychological performance in university students

Abstract

Summary: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between neuropsychological performance, physiological arousal and decision-making in university students who have or have not reported a history of mild head injury (MHI).

Methods: Forty-four students, 18 (41%) reporting a history of MHI, performed a design fluency task and the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) while electrodermal activity (EDA) was recorded.

Results: General cognitive ability and overall choice outcomes did not differ between groups. However, self-reported MHI severity predicted decision-making performance such that the greater the neural indices of trauma, the more disadvantageous the choices made by participants. As expected, both groups exhibited similar base levels of autonomic arousal and physiological responses to reward and punishment outcomes; however, those reporting MHI produced significantly lower levels of EDA during the anticipatory stages of decision-making.

Conclusions: Overall, these findings encourage the acceptance of head injury as being on a continuum of brain injury severity, as MHI can emulate neurophysiological and neuropsychological features of more traumatic cases and may be impacting mechanisms which sustain adaptive social decision-making.

• Head trauma
• emotion
• cognition
• physiological arousal

Notes

† Comparing EDA magnitude between participants measured with the traditional metal alloy electrodes and those measured with the Ag-AgCl electrodes revealed no statistical difference. Additionally, performing this comparison within a given group (i.e. MHI or non-MHI) produced the same result.