The Legacies of the Neuropsychology of Anxiety for Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory

Abstract

Over 50 years ago, Jeffrey Gray proposed a state theory of The Neuropsychology of Anxiety: An Enquiry Into the Functions of the Septo-hippocampal System (NPA; Gray, 1969, 1970b, pp. 478–479) based on anxiolytic drug action and a linked trait theory (Gray, 1970a)—now called Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory (RST). As the neural data expanded, NPA went through three major expansions. Here, I review the development of NPA (from its first edition, Gray, 1982, to its current third edition), omitting neural detail, and focusing on its higher order “conceptual nervous systems” (Gray, 1972). I then link these neural developments of NPA to their legacies in the nonneural development of RST measures. I emphasize the dangers for personality neuroscience of individual verbal interpretations of constructs derived from objective neural and pharmacological evidence. I link the current hierarchical state neuropsychology to current hierarchical trait views of psychopathology and of personality in general. On this view goal attraction/repulsion/conflict is embedded in approach/avoidance, which includes action as well as goals. Likewise, trait anxiety is embedded in neuroticism (general threat aversion). We must also allow for both reinforcer sensitivity (goals) and reinforcement sensitivity (plasticity)—these are distinct and can be discriminated at the neural level. Despite decades of development on both sides, NPA and RST remain to be properly integrated at the neural and conceptual levels.