Spontaneous Eye Blink Rate (EBR) Is Uncorrelated with Dopamine D2 Receptor Availability and Unmodulated by Dopamine Agonism in Healthy Adults

Dang, Linh C.; Samanez-Larkin, Gregory R.; Castrellon, Jaime J.; Perkins, Scott F.; Cowan, Ronald L.; Newhouse, Paul; Zald, David H.

doi:10.1523/eneuro.0211-17.2017

Cited by 77 publications

(69 citation statements)

References 49 publications

(62 reference statements)

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“…These findings are surprising in light of previous work showing how effects of cabergoline on cognitive function depend on individual baseline sEBR (Cavanagh et al, 2014) and OSPAN score (Broadway et al, 2018). However, it should be emphasized that evidence for a relationship between dopamine-proxy measures and dopamine levels is often correlational, based on studies with small sample sizes (N < 50; Cools et al, 2008), and that results are mixed (Dang et al, 2017;Sescousse et al, 2018). It is debatable whether such small-sample studies have adequate power to provide evidence for this relationship (Cremers, Wager, & Yarkoni, 2017;Rousselet & Pernet, 2012).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 68%

“…Similarly, the correlational findings we report should also be interpreted cautiously. While measures such as OSPAN and sEBR are easy to administer, the correlational evidence -as well as inconsistent findings regarding these measures (Dang et al, 2017;Jongkees & Colzato, 2016;Sescousse et al, 2018) -put pressure on their validity as an index of baseline dopamine levels.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Conscious perception and the modulatory role of dopamine: no effect of the dopamine D2 agonist cabergoline on visual masking, the attentional blink, and probabilistic discrimination

Boonstra

Schouwenburg

Seth

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Rationale. Conscious perception is thought to depend on global amplification of sensory input. In recent years, striatal dopamine has been proposed to be involved in gating information and conscious access, due to its modulatory influence on thalamocortical connectivity.Objectives. Since much of the evidence that implicates striatal dopamine is correlational, we conducted a double-blind crossover pharmacological study in which we administered cabergoline -a dopamine D2 agonist -and placebo to 30 healthy participants. Under both conditions, we subjected participants to several well-established experimental consciousperception paradigms, such as backward masking and the attentional blink task.Results. We found no evidence in support of an effect of cabergoline on conscious perception: key behavioral and event-related potential (ERP) findings associated with each of these tasks were unaffected by cabergoline. Conclusions.Our results cast doubt on a causal role for dopamine in visual perception. It remains an open possibility that dopamine has causal effects in other tasks, perhaps where perceptual uncertainty is more prominent.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 68%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Conscious perception and the modulatory role of dopamine: no effect of the dopamine D2 agonist cabergoline on visual masking, the attentional blink, and probabilistic discrimination

Boonstra

Schouwenburg

Seth

et al. 2020

Preprint

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“…The failure to observe an inverted-U-shaped effect in the current study might also be due to poor DA proxy measures. While the spontaneous blink rate has been extensively investigated as a proxy for DA function in animals and humans, many studies have also yielded conflicting or inconclusive results (Jongkees & Colzato, 2016;Dang et al, 2017;Sescousse et al, 2018).…”

Section: Modulation Of Da Drug Effects By Da Baselinementioning

confidence: 99%

Dopaminergic modulation of the exploration/exploitation trade-off in human decision-making

Chakroun

Mathar

Wiehler

et al. 2019

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Acknowledgements: This work was funded by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (grant PE1627/5-1 to J.P.). Large parts of this publication are based on the dissertation "Dopaminergic modulation of the explore/exploit trade-off in human decision making" by K.C. (Chakroun, Karima: Dopaminergic modulation of the explore/exploit trade-off in human decision making [online]; Hamburg, Univ., Diss., 2019; Summary A central issue in reinforcement learning and decision-making is whether to exploit knowledge of reward values, or to explore novel options. Although it is widely hypothesized that dopamine neurotransmission plays a key role in regulating this balance, causal evidence for a role of dopamine in human exploration is still lacking. Here, we use a combination of computational modeling, pharmacological intervention and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to test for a causal effect of dopamine transmission on the exploration-exploitation trade-off in humans. 31 healthy male subjects performed a restless four-armed bandit task in a within-subjects design under three drug conditions: 150mg of the dopamine precursor L-dopa, 2mg of the D2 receptor antagonist haloperidol, and placebo. In all conditions, choice behavior was best explained by an extension of an established Bayesian learning model accounting for perseveration, uncertainty-based exploration and random exploration. Uncertainty-based exploration was attenuated under L-dopa compared to placebo and haloperidol. There was no evidence for a modulation of prediction error signaling or categorical effects of exploration/exploitation under L-dopa, whereas model-based fMRI revealed that L-dopa attenuated neural representations of overall uncertainty in insula and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex. Our results highlight the computational role of these regions in exploration and suggest that dopamine modulates exploration by modulating how this circuit tracks accumulating uncertainty during decision-making.

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“…However, two recent studies report opposing findings. Dang et al (2017) found no significant correlation between sEBR and D2/3-receptor availability in midbrain and striatum in humans. In addition, they observed no significant impact of bromocriptine, a dopamine agonist, on participants' sEBRs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 63%

A potential link between gambling addiction severity and central dopamine levels – evidence from spontaneous eye blink rates in gamblers and controls

Mathar

Wiehler

Chakroun

et al. 2017

Preprint

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Accumulating evidence points at similarities between substance use disorders and pathological gambling on the behavioral and neural level. In substance addiction, dysregulation of striatal dopamine transmission has been consistently revealed. Due to the neurotoxicity of stimulating substances, it is still debated if this constitutes mainly a consequence of recurrent substance abuse or a vulnerability marker for addiction disorders. For gambling addiction, no clear association with striatal dopamine levels has been unveiled so far. With its presumably negligible dopaminergic toxicity, possible differences in striatal dopamine transmission in gambling addiction might therefore constitute a vulnerability marker. Spontaneous eye blink rate (sEBR) is controversially discussed as a potential proxy measure for striatal dopamine levels. Here we examined sEBR in 21 male problem gamblers and 20 healthy control participants. In addition, participants completed a screening questionnaire for overall psychopathology and self-reported measures of alcohol and nicotine consumption. We found no significant difference in sEBR between gamblers and controls. However, in gamblers, sEBR was negatively associated with addiction severity and positively associated with psychopathology. A final exploratory analysis revealed that healthy controls with low sEBR displayed higher alcohol and nicotine consumption than healthy participants with high sEBR. Although the association between dopamine transmission and sEBR is still debated, our findings reveal that sEBR is sensitive to inter-individual differences in addiction severity in problem gamblers.

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Spontaneous Eye Blink Rate (EBR) Is Uncorrelated with Dopamine D2 Receptor Availability and Unmodulated by Dopamine Agonism in Healthy Adults

Cited by 77 publications

References 49 publications

Conscious perception and the modulatory role of dopamine: no effect of the dopamine D2 agonist cabergoline on visual masking, the attentional blink, and probabilistic discrimination

Conscious perception and the modulatory role of dopamine: no effect of the dopamine D2 agonist cabergoline on visual masking, the attentional blink, and probabilistic discrimination

Dopaminergic modulation of the exploration/exploitation trade-off in human decision-making

A potential link between gambling addiction severity and central dopamine levels – evidence from spontaneous eye blink rates in gamblers and controls

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