‘Prefrontal’ cognitive performance of healthy subjects positively correlates with cerebral FDOPA influx: An exploratory [¹⁸F]‐fluoro‐L‐DOPA‐PET investigation

Abstract

Dopamine neurotransmission influences those cognitive processes, which are generally regarded as prefrontal cortical functions. In previous positron-emission-tomography (PET) studies, net blood-brain clearance of [18F]-fluoro-l-DOPA (FDOPA) correlated with impaired cognitive performance in patients with Parkinson's disease or schizophrenia. We hypothesized that FDOPA influx also correlates with performance of cognitive tasks associated with prefrontal functioning in healthy volunteers. The net blood-brain clearance of FDOPA (K(in)(app)) was mapped in a group of 11 healthy volunteers and calculated in striatal volumes-of-interest. The Wisconsin-Card-Sorting-Test (WCST), Stroop-Test, Trail-Making-Test (TMT-A/B), and Continuous-Performance-Test (CPT-M) had been administered previously to the same subjects. No correlation of K(in) (app) with perseverative errors in WCST or age could be found. However, there were significant positive correlations between the magnitude of K(in)(app) in caudate nucleus, putamen, and midbrain with performance of the TMT-B, CPT-M, and the Stroop test. Highest correlations were found between the time needed to perform the Stroop interference task and the K(in)(app) of striatal areas (Caudate nucleus: -0.780, P = 0.005; putamen: -0.870, P < 0. 001). Thus, the present findings reveal a strong correlation between dopamine synthesis capacity in striatum of healthy volunteers and performance of cognitive tasks linked to the prefrontal cortex.

Ventral striatal dopamine reflects behavioral and neural signatures of model-based control during sequential decision making

“…Using PET, we now demonstrate that interindividual differences in ventral striatal presynaptic dopamine levels are related to this bias toward model-based control. This accords with other studies that report enhanced cognitive capacities in subjects with higher levels of striatal F-DOPA uptake (17,18). Cognitive capacity, particularly as it relates to working memory function, is also linked to the extent to which individuals exploit model-based control (19).…”

“…16). On the other hand, individual variation of striatal presynaptic dopamine, quantified using neurochemical imaging, is known to positively relate to variability in "prefrontal" cognitive capacities (17,18), which might also limit the capacity for model-based learning (19). Indeed, depletion of presynaptic dopamine precursors and Parkinson's disease both compromised goal-directed behavior in a devaluation experiment and a slips-of-action test, whereas habitual learning remained intact (20,21).…”

Dopamine modulates attentional control of auditory perception: DARPP-32 (PPP1R1B) genotype effects on behavior and cortical evoked potentials

“…The present findings complement the results of other studies indicating that variations in dopamine functioning influence working memory (e.g., Cools et al, 2004;Frank et al, 2001;Landau et al, 2005;Lewis et al, 2003;McNab & Klingberg, 2008), executive control (e.g., Hesse et al, 2009;Siessmeier et al, 2006;Vernaleken et al, 2007;Volkow et al, 2007), and selective attention (e.g., Gorgoraptis et al, 2012;Kähkönen et al, 2001;Shelley et al, 1997). Human studies of striatal dopaminergic modulation of attention primarily investigated attentional control in the context of complex visual perception, such as video games (Koepp et al, 1998) and affective scenes (Siessmeier et al, 2006), or in the context of other cognitive processes such as Stroop interference (Vernaleken et al, 2007), visual attention as assessed by the Trail-Making test (Meyer-Lindenberg et al, 2007) and the attentional blink effect (Colzato et al, 2011).…”

“…Human studies of striatal dopaminergic modulation of attention primarily investigated attentional control in the context of complex visual perception, such as video games (Koepp et al, 1998) and affective scenes (Siessmeier et al, 2006), or in the context of other cognitive processes such as Stroop interference (Vernaleken et al, 2007), visual attention as assessed by the Trail-Making test (Meyer-Lindenberg et al, 2007) and the attentional blink effect (Colzato et al, 2011). Our findings of DARPP32 genotype effects on the behavioral performance and cortical evoked potentials that reflect attentional control of auditory perception when processing competing sensory information extend these previous findings.…”

“…Vernaleken et al (2007) found that changes in prefrontal blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) signal during attentional control were positively correlated with dopamine synthesis capacity in the ventral and dorsal striatum. Similarly, it has been observed that changes in BOLD signal in the anterior cingulate cortex and the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex while processing affective stimuli correlate positively with striatal dopamine synthesis in the caudate and putamen, which indicates that striatal dopamine contributes to attentional processing of affective stimuli (Siessmeier et al, 2006).…”