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Dopamine modulates the neural representation of subjective value of food in hungry subjects.


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Authors

Medic, Nenad 
Ziauddeen, Hisham 
Vestergaard, Martin D 
Henning, Elana 
Schultz, Wolfram 

Abstract

Although there is a rich literature on the role of dopamine in value learning, much less is known about its role in using established value estimations to shape decision-making. Here we investigated the effect of dopaminergic modulation on value-based decision-making for food items in fasted healthy human participants. The Becker-deGroot-Marschak auction, which assesses subjective value, was examined in conjunction with pharmacological fMRI using a dopaminergic agonist and an antagonist. We found that dopamine enhanced the neural response to value in the inferior parietal gyrus/intraparietal sulcus, and that this effect predominated toward the end of the valuation process when an action was needed to record the value. Our results suggest that dopamine is involved in acting upon the decision, providing additional insight to the mechanisms underlying impaired decision-making in healthy individuals and clinical populations with reduced dopamine levels.

Description

Keywords

decision, dopamine, food, reward, value, Adult, Brain, Decision Making, Dopamine, Double-Blind Method, Female, Food, Humans, Hunger, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Photic Stimulation, Psychomotor Performance, Reaction Time, Reward, Young Adult

Journal Title

J Neurosci

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0270-6474
1529-2401

Volume Title

34

Publisher

Society for Neuroscience
Sponsorship
Medical Research Council (G0001354)
Medical Research Council (MC_UU_12012/5/B)
Wellcome Trust (098497/Z/12/Z)
Wellcome Trust (095692/Z/11/Z)
Wellcome Trust (095495/Z/11/Z)
Medical Research Council (G1000183)
Medical Research Council (MC_UU_12012/5)
Medical Research Council (MC_PC_12012)