Going to the Extreme: Why some challenge limits of speed, altitude and endurance

Scientists wonder if it's all in their heads

By Sam McManis
smcmanis@sacbee.com

E-Mail

Comments (0)

Text Size:

tool goes here

Don't look down? Ah, forget that. By all means, look down. Gabriel Amador lives for the thrill, the adrenal rush, of scaling great heights at great personal danger and savoring the quest by peering into the abyss.

So there Amador stood last month, at the midpoint of a narrow bridge near the Mount Everest base camp during a 22-day trek through harsh Nepalese terrain. His guide and a Sherpa had already briskly reached the relative safety of the other side; Amador leaned over the railing for a peek.

"It was so cool to look down and see nothing below you," says Amador in a matter-of-fact tone. "That's when you feel the most alive."

CLICK FOR MORE PHOTOS

This 48-year-old pension administrator from Roseville lives for such pulse-pounding experiences. Five years ago, though, he almost died trying to feel alive. An avalanche on Mount Tasman in New Zealand killed three members of his climbing party and left Amador in a coma for a week. He awoke with a broken neck, fractured spine in two places, two broken hips, other fractures and brain swelling.

Despite the close call and despite the two artificial hips he now sports, Amador carries on in his high-risk hobby. If you wonder about his motivation, you wouldn't be the first. Last year, before he left on a trip to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, an astonished co-worker stopped by Amador's desk.

"Why do you do these things?" she asked. "You'd think you'd have learned your lesson."

"There must be some type of gene I have," he replied, "because I still love doing it."

They laughed it off, but Amador may actually be on to something.

Genetic researchers are using DNA data and functional MRIs of the brain to try to pinpoint whether there really is a chemical basis to risk-taking, or its close cousin sensation-seeking, in extreme athletes.

No definitive study has been published, but most researchers are focusing on the dopamine DRD4 receptor, a genetic marker that controls the flow of chemicals to the brain's reward center. Others have posited that risk-takers show a lower stimulus response in the brain's amygdala region, which triggers fear response, than the average person.

Psychologists have long studied people's personality traits and have determined that 10 percent to 15 percent of the population can be classified as Type T (for thrill), based on the Zuckerman-Kuhlman Personality Test. These people tend to seek out novel experiences, the theory being that they need to stimulate low dopamine levels.

Many of the studies have focused on sensation-seekers with drug and alcohol addictions or personality disorders. But a body of literature looking at sensation-seeking athletes is being developed.

As Terri Schneider, a sports psychologist and Bay Area endurance athlete, wrote in the 2007 Journal of Sport Behavior, "Choosing risk for the sake of risk is not the goal. Rather, while being attracted to activities that offer novel or intense experiences, sensation seekers are willing to accept the potential risks involved."

Given that definition, the Central Valley has a high quotient of sensation seekers.

This month, some of the world's best ultramarathoners, many homegrown, competed in the Western States Endurance Run, 100 miles from Squaw Valley over Emigrant Pass to Auburn. Next month, athletes from the area will compete in the Primal Quest Badlands, a nine-day trek through the Black Hills of South Dakota via running, climbing, mountain bike riding, paddling, horseback and other modes of transport.

Those sports, while challenging and pain-producing, rarely result in death. But conditions such as acute kidney failure, heat stroke and hyponatremia (overhydration resulting in low sodium levels) do occur. That puts ultra runners on the low end of the risk-taking continuum.