The purpose of the present study was to revise the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale Version 10 (BIS‐10), identify the factor structure of the items among normals, and compare their scores on the revised form (BIS‐11) with psychiatric inpatients and prison inmates. The scale was administered to 412 college undergraduates, 248 psychiatric inpatients, and 73 male prison inmates. Exploratory principal components analysis of the items identified six primary factors and three second‐order factors. The three second‐order factors were labeled Attentional Impulsiveness, Motor Impulsiveness, and Nonplanning Impulsiveness. Two of the three second‐order factors identified in the BIS‐11 were consistent with those proposed by Barratt (1985), but no cognitive impulsiveness component was identified per se. The results of the present study suggest that the total score of the BIS‐11 is an internally consistent measure of impulsiveness and has potential clinical utility for measuring impulsiveness among selected patient and inmate populations.

The high comorbidity of impulsivity and selected psychiatric disorders, including personality disorders, substance use disorders, and bipolar disorder, is in a large part related to the association between impulsivity and the biological substrates of these disorders. Before treatment studies on impulsivity can move forward, measures of impulsivity that capture the core aspects of this behavior need to be refined and tested on the basis of an ideologically neutral model of impulsivity.

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Two orthogonal personality traits or predispositions, impulsiveness and anxiety, have been invariant in five separate factor analyses. One of these analyses is presented here along with an item analysis of the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS) which has a high loading on the impulsiveness factor. The BIS has never significantly correlated with any of the various anxiety or emotional stability measures in over 50 administrations of the scale, further evidence for the invariance of these two seconcl-order factors.A prime goal of psychometric research is to discover invariant relationships among measures of personality traits over as wide a range of Ss as possible. Factor analysis has been used extensively for this purpose. This article will describe an invariant relationship 'between psychometric qi~escionnaires which have had consistently high loadings on two orthogonal personality factors, impulsiveness and anxiety.A questionnaire developed by Barratt (1959) has been administered over 50 times to widely varying groups of Ss in the age range 1 4 to 50 yr. Ss have included samples of high school snidents, undergraduate college smdents, medical

Brain imaging studies find evidence of prefrontal cortical dysfunction in cocaine-dependent subjects. Similarly, cocaine-dependent subjects have problems with behaviors related to executive function and impulsivity. Since prefrontal cortical axonal tracts cross between hemispheres in the corpus callosum, it is possible that white matter integrity in the corpus callosum could also be diminished in cocainedependent subjects. The purpose of this study was to compare corpus callosum white matter integrity as measured by the fractional anisotropy (FA) on diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) between 18 cocaine-dependent subjects and 18 healthy controls. The Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11) and a continuous performance test: the Immediate and Delayed Memory Task (IMT/DMT) were also collected. Results of the DTI showed significantly reduced FA in the genu and rostral body of the anterior corpus callosum in cocainedependent subjects compared to controls. Cocaine-dependent subjects also had significantly higher BIS-11 scores, greater impulsive (commission) errors, and reduced ability to discriminate target from catch stimuli (discriminability) on the IMT/DMT. Within cocaine dependent subjects there was a significant negative correlation between FA in the anterior corpus callosum and behavioral laboratory measured impulsivity, and there was a positive correlation between FA and discriminability. The finding that reduced integrity of anterior corpus callosum white matter in cocaine users is related to impaired impulse control and reduced ability to discriminate between target and catch stimuli is consistent with prior theories regarding frontal cortical involvement in impaired inhibitory control in cocainedependent subjects.