Dopamine and inhibitory action control: evidence from spontaneous eye blink rates

Abstract

The inhibitory control of actions has been claimed to rely on dopaminergic pathways. Given that this hypothesis is mainly based on patient and drug studies, some authors have questioned its validity and suggested that beneWcial eVects of dopaminergic stimulants on response inhibition may be limited to cases of suboptimal inhibitory functioning. We present evidence that, in carefully selected healthy adults, spontaneous eyeblink rate, a marker of central dopaminergic functioning, reliably predicts the eYciency in inhibiting unwanted action tendencies in a stop-signal task. These Wndings support the assumption of a modulatory role for dopamine in inhibitory action control.

The role of 4D US in evaluation of fetal movements and facial expressions and their relationship with fetal neurobehaviour

“…It is regulated by the dopamine system and the increased rate of eye blinking along the pregnancy might be a parameter of the central dopamine system [39][40][41][42] (fig 2b). During pregnancy the rate increases until term when usually a slight decrease is observed [21,[34][35][36][37].…”

Revisiting the association between hypnotisability and blink rate

“…One of the experimenters sat nearby to control the subjects who did not close their eyes; however, they had clearly understood the instruction and none of them closed the eyes. Blinks were recorded through 3 M Red Dot Ag/AgCl disposable electrodes placed on the right orbicularis muscle, amplified by a LACEElettronica System amplifier (Pisa, Italy) and stored for off-line analysis; the number of BR (voltage change of 100 uv in a time interval of 500 ms, according to Colzato et al 2009), was counted for each of the consecutive 5 min by a Labview software prepared ad hoc. Skin conductance (SC) was monitored by via 8 mm Ag/AgCl electrodes placed on the thenar and hypo-thenar regions of the right hand.…”

“…In fact, cerebellar impairment is associated with higher BR and several studies of sensorimotor integration indicate different cerebellar controls in the highs' and lows' behavior. studies of functions classically considered as "dopaminergic" (Kohl et al 2013;Colzato et al 2009) have provided inconsistent results. In fact, reduced pre-pulse inhibition has been found associated with high hypnotisability (Lichtenberg et al 2008b), but blink rate (BR) has been found lower in highs than in medium hypnotizable individuals (mediums) (Lichtenberg et al 2008a) and lows (Lindsay et al 1993).…”

Distribution of spontaneous inter-blink interval in repeated measurements with and without topical ocular anesthesia

“…These patterns may be the expression of an intrinsic feature of each individual determined by mesencephalic dopaminergic activity. Although the hypothesis of blinking rate central regulation is well accepted in neuropsychology (4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9) , there are several lines of ophthalmologic evidence showing that the condition of the ocular surface modulates the blink rate (1,(10)(11) . A classical example is the reduced blink rate that occurs after topical ocular anesthesia (12) .…”