Atomoxetine modulates the relationship between perceptual abilities and response bias

Guedj, Carole; Reynaud, Amélie; Monfardini, Elisabetta; Salemme, Roméo; Farnè, Alessandro; Meunier, Martine; Hadj-Bouziane, Fadila

doi:10.1007/s00213-019-05336-7

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 53 publications

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“…Besides our own work showing a strong implication of the LC/NA system in physical effort, several studies suggest that the LC could also play a critical role in cognitive aspects of effort (which can be referred to as cognitive control or mental load). Indeed, several pharmacological studies showed a clear relation between noradrenergic levels and performance in task requiring cognitive control [ 21 , 22 ]. The relation between LC activity and cognitive effort is also supported by the dual relation between pupil size and LC activity on one hand and cognitive effort on the other hand [ 5 , 23 – 27 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Locus coeruleus neurons encode the subjective difficulty of triggering and executing actions

Bornert

Bouret

2021

PLoS Biol

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The brain stem noradrenergic nucleus locus coeruleus (LC) is involved in various costly processes: arousal, stress, and attention. Recent work has pointed toward an implication in physical effort, and indirect evidence suggests that the LC could be also involved in cognitive effort. To assess the dynamic relation between LC activity, effort production, and difficulty, we recorded the activity of 193 LC single units in 5 monkeys performing 2 discounting tasks (a delay discounting task and a force discounting task), as well as a simpler target detection task where conditions were matched for difficulty and only differed in terms of sensory-motor processes. First, LC neurons displayed a transient activation both when monkeys initiated an action and when exerting force. Second, the magnitude of the activation scaled with the associated difficulty, and, potentially, the corresponding amount of effort produced, both for decision and force production. Indeed, at action initiation in both discounting tasks, LC activation increased in conditions associated with lower average engagement rate, i.e., those requiring more cognitive control to trigger the response. Decision-related activation also scaled with response time (RT), over and above task parameters, in line with the idea that it reflects the amount of resources (here time) spent on the decision process. During force production, LC activation only scaled with the amount of force produced in the force discounting task, but not in the control target detection task, where subjective difficulty was equivalent across conditions. Our data show that LC neurons dynamically track the amount of effort produced to face both cognitive and physical challenges with a subsecond precision. This works provides key insight into effort processing and the contribution of the noradrenergic system, which is affected in several pathologies where effort is impaired, including Parkinson disease and depression.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Locus coeruleus neurons encode the subjective difficulty of triggering and executing actions

Bornert

Bouret

2021

PLoS Biol

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Atomoxetine and reward size equally improve task engagement and perceptual decisions but differently affect movement execution

Kaduk,

Henry,

Guitton

et al. 2023

Neuropharmacology

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Atomoxetine modulates the contribution of high- and low-level signals during free viewing of natural images in rhesus monkeys

Reynaud

Blini

Koun

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Visuo-spatial attentional orienting is fundamental to selectively process behaviorally relevant information, depending on both low-level visual attributes of stimuli in the environment and higher-level factors, such as goals, expectations and prior knowledge. Growing evidence suggests an impact of the locus-coeruleus-norepinephrine (LC-NE) system in attentional orienting that depends on task-context. Nonetheless, most of previous studies used visual displays encompassing a target and various distractors, often preceded by cues to orient the attentional focus. This emphasizes the contribution of goal-driven processes, at the expense of other factors related to the stimulus content. Here, we aimed to determine the impact of NE on attentional orienting in more naturalistic conditions, using complex images and without any explicit task manipulation. We tested the effects of atomoxetine (ATX) injections, a NE reuptake inhibitor, on four monkeys during free viewing of images belonging to three categories: landscapes, monkey faces and scrambled images. Analyses of the gaze exploration patterns revealed, first, that the monkeys spent more time on each fixation under ATX compared to the control condition, regardless of the image content. Second, we found that, depending on the image content, ATX modulated the impact of low-level visual salience on attentional orienting. This effect correlated with the effect of ATX on the number and duration of fixations. Taken together, our results demonstrate that ATX adjusts the contribution of salience on attentional orienting depending on the image content, indicative of its role in balancing the role of stimulus-driven and top-down control during free viewing of complex stimuli.

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Atomoxetine modulates the relationship between perceptual abilities and response bias

Cited by 3 publications

References 53 publications

Locus coeruleus neurons encode the subjective difficulty of triggering and executing actions

Locus coeruleus neurons encode the subjective difficulty of triggering and executing actions

Atomoxetine and reward size equally improve task engagement and perceptual decisions but differently affect movement execution

Atomoxetine modulates the contribution of high- and low-level signals during free viewing of natural images in rhesus monkeys

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