Methylphenidate boosts choices of mental labor over leisure depending on striatal dopamine synthesis capacity
Creators
Date of Archiving
2020Archive
Radboud Data Repository
Publication type
Dataset
Access level
Restricted access

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Organization
Psychiatry
PI Group Motivational & Cognitive Control
Onderzoekcentrum voor Staat en Recht
Audience(s)
Life sciences
Languages used
English
Key words
Dopamine; Striatum; Methylphenidate; Synthesis capacity; Sulpiride; Cognitive effortAbstract
The cognitive enhancing effects of methylphenidate are well established, but the mechanisms remain unclear. We recently demonstrated that methylphenidate boosts cognitive motivation by enhancing the weight on the benefits of a cognitive task in a manner that depended on striatal dopamine. Here we considered the complementary hypothesis that methylphenidate might also act by changing the weight on the opportunity cost of a cognitive task, that is, the cost of foregoing alternative opportunity. To this end, fifty healthy participants (25 women) completed a novel cognitive effort discounting task that required choices between task and leisure. They were tested on methylphenidate, placebo as well as the selective D2-receptor agent sulpiride, the latter to strengthen inference about dopamine receptor selectivity of methylphenidate’s effects. Furthermore, they also underwent an [18F]DOPA PET scan to quantify striatal dopamine synthesis capacity. Methylphenidate boosted choices of cognitive effort over leisure across the group, and this effect was greatest in participants with more striatal dopamine synthesis capacity. The effects of sulpiride did not reach significance. This study strengthens the motivational account of methylphenidate’s effects on cognition and suggests that methylphenidate reduces the cost of mental labor by increasing striatal dopamine.
This item appears in the following Collection(s)
- Datasets [1485]
- Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging [3660]
- Faculty of Law [25100]
- Faculty of Medical Sciences [87728]