Affective Benefits of Daily Life Activity and Experiential Diversity Are Associated with Catecholamine Systems Across the Adult Life Span

Engaging in varied behaviors promotes well-being in both humans and non-human animals. The current study tested whether the diversity of daily life activities and experiences are associated with affect and cognition across adulthood. Additional analyses explored the role of the catecholamine systems in sustaining the benefits of daily life diversity. Participants (N=184) ages 18-87 completed three weeks of daily life sampling that included repeated measurements of activities, affect, and geolocation. In a subset of these participants, we used MRI (N=72) and PET (N=35) to measure catecholamine systems. Both activity and experiential diversity were independently associated with affect, but not cognition. Interestingly, the coupling between affect and activity diversity was related to the dopaminergic system, whereas the coupling between affect and experiential diversity was associated with the noradrenergic system. These findings suggest that catecholamine systems play complementary roles in supporting the affective benefits of activity and experiential diversity across adulthood.