Self-Face Activates the Dopamine Reward Pathway without Awareness.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Ota C
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8408479 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:ContextAttention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)--characterized by symptoms of inattention and hyperactivity-impulsivity--is the most prevalent childhood psychiatric disorder that frequently persists into adulthood, and there is increasing evidence of reward-motivation deficits in this disorder.ObjectiveTo evaluate biological bases that might underlie a reward/motivation deficit by imaging key components of the brain dopamine reward pathway (mesoaccumbens).Design, setting, and participantsWe used positron emission tomography to measure dopamine synaptic markers (transporters and D(2)/D(3) receptors) in 53 nonmedicated adults with ADHD and 44 healthy controls between 2001-2009 at Brookhaven National Laboratory.Main outcome measuresWe measured specific binding of positron emission tomographic radioligands for dopamine transporters (DAT) using [(11)C]cocaine and for D(2)/D(3) receptors using [(11)C]raclopride, quantified as binding potential (distribution volume ratio -1).ResultsFor both ligands, statistical parametric mapping showed that specific binding was lower in ADHD than in controls (threshold for significance set at P < .005) in regions of the dopamine reward pathway in the left side of the brain. Region-of-interest analyses corroborated these findings. The mean (95% confidence interval [CI] of mean difference) for DAT in the nucleus accumbens for controls was 0.71 vs 0.63 for those with ADHD (95% CI, 0.03-0.13, P = .004) and in the midbrain for controls was 0.16 vs 0.09 for those with ADHD (95% CI, 0.03-0.12; P < or = .001); for D(2)/D(3) receptors, the mean accumbens for controls was 2.85 vs 2.68 for those with ADHD (95% CI, 0.06-0.30, P = .004); and in the midbrain, it was for controls 0.28 vs 0.18 for those with ADHD (95% CI, 0.02-0.17, P = .01). The analysis also corroborated differences in the left caudate: the mean DAT for controls was 0.66 vs 0.53 for those with ADHD (95% CI, 0.04-0.22; P = .003) and the mean D(2)/D(3) for controls was 2.80 vs 2.47 for those with ADHD (95% CI, 0.10-0.56; P = .005) and differences in D(2)/D(3) in the hypothalamic region, with controls having a mean of 0.12 vs 0.05 for those with ADHD (95% CI, 0.02-0.12; P = .004). Ratings of attention correlated with D(2)/D(3) in the accumbens (r = 0.35; 95% CI, 0.15-0.52; P = .001), midbrain (r = 0.35; 95% CI, 0.14-0.52; P = .001), caudate (r = 0.32; 95% CI, 0.11-0.50; P = .003), and hypothalamic (r = 0.31; CI, 0.10-0.49; P = .003) regions and with DAT in the midbrain (r = 0.37; 95% CI, 0.16-0.53; P < or = .001).ConclusionA reduction in dopamine synaptic markers associated with symptoms of inattention was shown in the dopamine reward pathway of participants with ADHD.
| S-EPMC2958516 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Accurate self-awareness is essential for adapting one's tasks and goals to one's actual abilities. Patients with neurodegenerative diseases, particularly those with right frontal involvement, often present with poor self-awareness of their functional limitations that may exacerbate their already jeopardized decision-making and behaviour. We studied the structural neuroanatomical basis for impaired self-awareness among patients with neurodegenerative disease and healthy older adults. One hundred and twenty-four participants (78 patients with neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer's disease, behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia, right-temporal frontotemporal dementia, semantic variant and non-fluent variant primary progressive aphasia, and 46 healthy controls) described themselves on the Patient Competency Rating Scale, rating observable functioning across four domains (daily living activities, cognitive, emotional control, interpersonal). All participants underwent structural magnetic resonance imaging. Informants also described subjects' functioning on the same scale. Self-awareness was measured by comparing self and informant ratings. Group differences in discrepancy scores were analysed using general linear models, controlling for age, sex and disease severity. Compared with controls, patients with behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia overestimated their functioning in all domains, patients with Alzheimer's disease overestimated cognitive and emotional functioning, patients with right-temporal frontotemporal dementia overestimated interpersonal functioning, and patients with non-fluent aphasia overestimated emotional and interpersonal functioning. Patients with semantic variant aphasia did not overestimate functioning on any domain. To examine the neuroanatomic correlates of impaired self-awareness, discrepancy scores were correlated with brain volume using voxel-based morphometry. To identify the unique neural correlates of overlooking versus exaggerating deficits, overestimation and underestimation scores were analysed separately, controlling for age, sex, total intracranial volume and extent of actual functional decline. Atrophy related to overestimating one's functioning included bilateral, right greater than left frontal and subcortical regions, including dorsal superior and middle frontal gyri, lateral and medial orbitofrontal gyri, right anterior insula, putamen, thalamus, and caudate, and midbrain and pons. Thus, our patients' tendency to under-represent their functional decline was related to degeneration of domain-general dorsal frontal regions involved in attention, as well as orbitofrontal and subcortical regions likely involved in assigning a reward value to self-related processing and maintaining accurate self-knowledge. The anatomic correlates of underestimation (right rostral anterior cingulate cortex, uncorrected significance level) were distinct from overestimation and had a substantially smaller effect size. This suggests that underestimation or 'tarnishing' may be influenced by non-structural neurobiological and sociocultural factors, and should not be considered to be on a continuum with overestimation or 'polishing' of functional capacity, which appears to be more directly mediated by neural circuit dysfunction.
| S-EPMC4107746 | biostudies-literature
Project description:When experiences become meaningful to the self, they are linked to synchronous activity in a paralimbic network of self-awareness and dopaminergic activity. This network includes medial prefrontal and medial parietal/posterior cingulate cortices, where transcranial magnetic stimulation may transiently impair self-awareness. Conversely, we hypothesize that dopaminergic stimulation may improve self-awareness and metacognition (i.e., the ability of the brain to consciously monitor its own cognitive processes). Here, we demonstrate improved noetic (conscious) metacognition by oral administration of 100 mg dopamine in minimal self-awareness. In a separate experiment with extended self-awareness dopamine improved the retrieval accuracy of memories of self-judgment (autonoetic, i.e., explicitly self-conscious) metacognition. Concomitantly, magnetoencephalography (MEG) showed increased amplitudes of oscillations (power) preferentially in the medial prefrontal cortex. Given that electromagnetic activity in this region is instrumental in self-awareness, this explains the specific effect of dopamine on explicit self-awareness and autonoetic metacognition.
| S-EPMC4737196 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Prolonged viewing of a stimulus results in a subsequent perceptual bias. This perceptual adaptation and the resulting aftereffect reveal important characteristics regarding how perceptual systems are tuned. These aftereffects occur not only for simple stimulus features but also for high-level stimulus properties. Here we report a novel cross-category adaptation aftereffect demonstrating that prolonged viewing of a human body without a face shifts the perceptual tuning curve for face gender and face identity. This contradicts a central assumption underlying perceptual adaptation: that adaptation depends on physical similarity between how the adapting and the adapted features are perceived. Additionally, this aftereffect was not due to response bias, because its dependence on adaptation duration resembled traditional perceptual aftereffects. These body-to-face adaptation results demonstrate that bodies alone can alter the tuning properties of neurons that code for the gender and identity of faces. More generally, these results reveal that high-level perceptual adaptation can occur when the property or features being adapted are automatically inferred rather than perceived in the adapting stimulus.
| S-EPMC3023960 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Self-affirmation theory posits that people are motivated to maintain a positive self-view and that threats to perceived self-competence are met with resistance. When threatened, self-affirmations can restore self-competence by allowing individuals to reflect on sources of self-worth, such as core values. Many questions exist, however, about the underlying mechanisms associated with self-affirmation. We examined the neural mechanisms of self-affirmation with a task developed for use in a functional magnetic resonance imaging environment. Results of a region of interest analysis demonstrated that participants who were affirmed (compared with unaffirmed participants) showed increased activity in key regions of the brain's self-processing (medial prefrontal cortex?+?posterior cingulate cortex) and valuation (ventral striatum?+?ventral medial prefrontal cortex) systems when reflecting on future-oriented core values (compared with everyday activities). Furthermore, this neural activity went on to predict changes in sedentary behavior consistent with successful affirmation in response to a separate physical activity intervention. These results highlight neural processes associated with successful self-affirmation, and further suggest that key pathways may be amplified in conjunction with prospection.
| S-EPMC4814782 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Subjects routinely control the vigor with which they emit motoric responses. However, the bulk of formal treatments of decision-making ignores this dimension of choice. A recent theoretical study suggested that action vigor should be influenced by experienced average reward rate and that this rate is encoded by tonic dopamine in the brain. We previously examined how average reward rate modulates vigor as exemplified by response times and found a measure of agreement with the first suggestion. In the current study, we examined the second suggestion, namely the potential influence of dopamine signaling on vigor. Ninety healthy subjects participated in a double-blind experiment in which they received one of the following: placebo, L-DOPA (which increases dopamine levels in the brain), or citalopram (which has a selective, if complex, effect on serotonin levels). Subjects performed multiple trials of a rewarded odd-ball discrimination task in which we varied the potential reward over time in order to exercise the putative link between vigor and average reward rate. Replicating our previous findings, we found that a significant fraction of the variance in subjects' responses could be explained by our experimentally manipulated changes in average reward rate. Crucially, this relationship was significantly stronger under L-Dopa than under Placebo, suggesting that the impact of average reward levels on action vigor is indeed subject to a dopaminergic influence.
| S-EPMC3682144 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Temporal difference learning models propose phasic dopamine signaling encodes reward prediction errors that drive learning. This is supported by studies where optogenetic stimulation of dopamine neurons can stand in lieu of actual reward. Nevertheless, a large body of data also shows that dopamine is not necessary for learning, and that dopamine depletion primarily affects task performance. We offer a resolution to this paradox based on an hypothesis that dopamine encodes the precision of beliefs about alternative actions, and thus controls the outcome-sensitivity of behavior. We extend an active inference scheme for solving Markov decision processes to include learning, and show that simulated dopamine dynamics strongly resemble those actually observed during instrumental conditioning. Furthermore, simulated dopamine depletion impairs performance but spares learning, while simulated excitation of dopamine neurons drives reward learning, through aberrant inference about outcome states. Our formal approach provides a novel and parsimonious reconciliation of apparently divergent experimental findings.
| S-EPMC4631836 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Massive activation of dopamine neurons is critical for natural reward and drug abuse. In contrast, the significance of their spontaneous activity remains elusive. In Drosophila melanogaster, depolarization of the protocerebral anterior medial (PAM) cluster dopamine neurons en masse signals reward to the mushroom body (MB) and drives appetitive memory. Focusing on the functional heterogeneity of PAM cluster neurons, we identified that a single class of PAM neurons, PAM-?3, mediates sugar reward by suppressing their own activity. PAM-?3 is selectively required for appetitive olfactory learning, while activation of these neurons in turn induces aversive memory. Ongoing activity of PAM-?3 gets suppressed upon sugar ingestion. Strikingly, transient inactivation of basal PAM-?3 activity can substitute for reward and induces appetitive memory. Furthermore, we identified the satiety-signaling neuropeptide Allatostatin A (AstA) as a key mediator that conveys inhibitory input onto PAM-?3. Our results suggest the significance of basal dopamine release in reward signaling and reveal a circuit mechanism for negative regulation.
| S-EPMC5172549 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Whilst reward pathologies e.g., anhedonia and apathy, are major and common in stress-related neuropsychiatric disorders, their neurobiological bases and therefore treatment are poorly understood. Functional imaging studies in humans with reward pathology indicate that attenuated BOLD activity in nucleus accumbens (NAc) occurs during reward anticipation/expectancy but not reinforcement; potentially, this is dopamine (DA) related. In mice, chronic social stress (CSS) leads to reduced reward learning and effortful motivation and, here, DA-sensor fibre photometry was used to investigate whether these behavioural deficits co-occur with altered NAc DA activity during reward anticipation and/or reinforcement. In CSS mice relative to controls: (1) Reduced discriminative learning of the sequence, tone-on + appetitive behaviour = tone-on + sucrose reinforcement, co-occurred with attenuated NAc DA activity throughout tone-on and sucrose reinforcement. (2) Reduced effortful motivation during the sequence, operant behaviour = tone-on + sucrose delivery + tone-off / appetitive behaviour = sucrose reinforcement, co-occurred with attenuated NAc DA activity at tone-on and typical activity at sucrose reinforcement. (3) Reduced effortful motivation during the sequence, operant behaviour = appetitive behaviour + sociosexual reinforcement co-occurred with typical NAc DA activity at female reinforcement. Therefore, in CSS mice attenuated NAc DA activity is specific to reward anticipation and as such potentially causal to deficits in learning and motivation. CSS did not impact on the transcriptome of ventral tegmentum DA neurons, suggesting that its stimulus-specific effects on NAc DA activity originate elsewhere in the neural circuitry of reward processing.
2024-07-31 | GSE268460 | GEO
Project description:Obesity as a result of overeating as well as a number of well described eating disorders has been accurately considered to be a world-wide epidemic. Recently a number of theories backed by a plethora of scientifically sound neurochemical and genetic studies provide strong evidence that food addiction is similar to psychoactive drug addiction. Our laboratory has published on the concept known as Reward Deficiency Syndrome (RDS) which is a genetic and epigenetic phenomena leading to impairment of the brain reward circuitry resulting in a hypo-dopaminergic function. RDS involves the interactions of powerful neurotransmitters and results in abnormal craving behavior. A number of important facts which could help translate to potential therapeutic targets espoused in this focused review include: (1) consumption of alcohol in large quantities or carbohydrates binging stimulates the brain's production of and utilization of dopamine; (2) in the meso-limbic system the enkephalinergic neurons are in close proximity, to glucose receptors; (3) highly concentrated glucose activates the calcium channel to stimulate dopamine release from P12 cells; (4) a significant correlation between blood glucose and cerebrospinal fluid concentrations of homovanillic acid the dopamine metabolite; (5) 2-deoxyglucose (2DG), the glucose analog, in pharmacological doses is associated with enhanced dopamine turnover and causes acute glucoprivation. Evidence from animal studies and fMRI in humans support the hypothesis that multiple, but similar brain circuits are disrupted in obesity and drug dependence and for the most part, implicate the involvement of DA-modulated reward circuits in pathologic eating behaviors. Based on a consensus of neuroscience research treatment of both glucose and drug like cocaine, opiates should incorporate dopamine agonist therapy in contrast to current theories and practices that utilizes dopamine antagonistic therapy. Considering that up until now clinical utilization of powerful dopamine D2 agonists have failed due to chronic down regulation of D2 receptors newer targets based on novel less powerful D2 agonists that up-regulate D2 receptors seems prudent. We encourage new strategies targeted at improving DA function in the treatment and prevention of obesity a subtype of reward deficiency.
| S-EPMC4166230 | biostudies-other