Dopamine Modulates Risk-Taking as a Function of Baseline Sensation-Seeking Trait

Abstract

Trait sensation-seeking, defined as a need for varied, complex, and intense sensations, represents a relatively underexplored hedonic drive in human behavioral neuroscience research. It is related to increased risk for a range of behaviors including substance use, gambling, and risky sexual practice. Individual differences in self-reported sensation-seeking have been linked to brain dopamine function, particularly at D2-like receptors, but so far no causal evidence exists for a role of dopamine in sensation-seeking behavior in humans. Here, we investigated the effects of the selective D2/D3 agonist cabergoline on performance of a probabilistic risky choice task in healthy humans using a sensitive within-subject, placebo-controlled design. Cabergoline significantly influenced the way participants combined different explicit signals regarding probability and loss when choosing between response options associated with uncertain outcomes. Importantly, these effects were strongly dependent on baseline sensation-seeking score. Overall, cabergoline increased sensitivity of choice to information about probability of winning; while decreasing discrimination according to magnitude of potential losses associated with different options. The largest effects of the drug were observed in participants with lower sensation-seeking scores. These findings provide evidence that risk-taking behavior in humans can be directly manipulated by a dopaminergic drug, but that the effectiveness of such a manipulation depends on baseline differences in sensation-seeking trait. This emphasizes the importance of considering individual differences when investigating manipulation of risky decision-making, and may have relevance for the development of pharmacotherapies for disorders involving excessive risk-taking in humans, such as pathological gambling.

Conflict acts as an implicit cost in reinforcement learning

“…Low doses of D2 agonists reduce dopamine signalling by targeting pre-synaptic autoreceptors, diminishing phasic dopamine bursts and consequently decreasing reward learning and increasing relative learning from punishment [30][31][32][33] . Other studies have shown that low doses of cabergoline increase error awareness and response inhibition 51 , and cause a shift to a more conservative risk taking strategy 52 , all possibly due to a relative shift in indirect over direct pathway functioning. In the absence of nearly any other behavioural or EEG alteration, cabergoline caused a strong behavioural bias for C4B.…”

Mesocorticolimbic dopamine functioning in primary psychopathy: A source of within-group heterogeneity

“…For example, inactivation of the PFC and/or administration of D2-agonists boosts reward expectancy, lowers punishment sensitivity, impairs behavioral flexibility, and increases risktaking (Kuryloa and Sarah Tanguay, 2003;Goto and Grace, 2005;Norbury et al, 2013). Therefore, when taken to extremes, tonic DA hyperactivity in limbic structures can dampen the influence of PFC-driven feedback on ongoing behavior and thereby result in a hyperfocus towards rewards, impetuous risk-taking, and impaired response modulation, which is characteristic of disinhibited forms of psychopathy Newman and Lorenz, 2004).…”

Dopaminergic Drug Effects on Probability Weighting during Risky Decision Making

“…First, it is remarkably consistent with a recent study that used a similar paradigm and similar drug (amisulpride), and showed that the selective blockade of D 2 /D 3 receptor with amisulpride led to a similar decrease in probability distortion during risky decision-making (Burke et al, 2017). In another study, Norbury et al (2013) showed that, in low sensation-seeking participants, the dopamine D 2 /D 3 receptor agonist cabergoline increased risk-taking for high winning probabilities, while decreasing it for low winning probabilities. Similarly, Stopper et al (2013) have shown that the administration of a dopamine D 1 receptor agonist increased risk-taking behavior of rats in the context of high winning probabilities but decreased it in the context of low winning probabilities.…”