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Effects of methamphetamine administration on information gathering during probabilistic reasoning in healthy humans.


Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Ermakova, Anna O 
Ramachandra, Pranathi 
Corlett, Philip R 
Fletcher, Paul C 
Murray, Graham K 

Abstract

Jumping to conclusions (JTC) during probabilistic reasoning is a cognitive bias repeatedly demonstrated in people with schizophrenia and shown to be associated with delusions. Little is known about the neurochemical basis of probabilistic reasoning. We tested the hypothesis that catecholamines influence data gathering and probabilistic reasoning by administering intravenous methamphetamine, which is known to cause synaptic release of the catecholamines noradrenaline and dopamine, to healthy humans whilst they undertook a probabilistic inference task. Our study used a randomised, double-blind, cross-over design. Seventeen healthy volunteers on three visits were administered either placebo or methamphetamine or methamphetamine preceded by amisulpride. In all three conditions participants performed the "beads" task in which participants decide how much information to gather before making a probabilistic inference, and which measures the cognitive bias towards jumping to conclusions. Psychotic symptoms triggered by methamphetamine were assessed using Comprehensive Assessment of At-Risk Mental States (CAARMS). Methamphetamine induced mild psychotic symptoms, but there was no effect of drug administration on the number of draws to decision (DTD) on the beads task. DTD was a stable trait that was highly correlated within subjects across visits (intra-class correlation coefficients of 0.86 and 0.91 on two versions of the task). The less information was sampled in the placebo condition, the more psychotic-like symptoms the person had after the methamphetamine plus amisulpride condition (p = 0.028). Our results suggest that information gathering during probabilistic reasoning is a stable trait, not easily modified by dopaminergic or noradrenergic modulation.

Description

Keywords

Adult, Decision Making, Delusions, Dopamine, Female, Healthy Volunteers, Humans, Male, Methamphetamine, Norepinephrine, Schizophrenia, Thinking, Young Adult

Journal Title

PLoS One

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1932-6203
1932-6203

Volume Title

9

Publisher

Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Sponsorship
Medical Research Council (G1000183)
Medical Research Council (G0701911)
Medical Research Council (G0001354)
Wellcome Trust (093875/Z/10/Z)
Wellcome Trust (095692/Z/11/Z)
Medical Research Council (G0701911/1)
This was supported by a Clinical Scientist Award to Dr. Murray from the Medical Research Council (G0701911); by the University of Cambridge Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute, funded by a joint award from the Medical Research Council and Wellcome Trust (G1000183 and 093875/Z/10Z); by awards from the Wellcome Trust and the Bernard Wolfe Health Neuroscience Fund to Dr. Fletcher; and by the Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Facility (WTCRF) at Addenbrooke's Hospital. This work was partly conducted at the Clinical Neuroscience Research Unit, Connecticut Mental Health Center. The authors recognize the support of the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services. This publication was also made possible by Clinical and Translational Science Awards grant UL1 RR024139 from the National Center for Research Resources and the National Center for Advancing Translational Science, components of National Institutes of Health, and the NIH Roadmap for Medical Research. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official view of NIH.