The influence of the noradrenergic/stress system on perceptual biases for reward

Abstract

Previous research has established a role for the norepinephrine (NE)/stress system in individual differences in biases to attend to reward or punishment. Outstanding questions concern its role in the flexibility with which such biases can be changed. The goal of this preregistered study was to examine the role of the NE/stress system in the degree to which biases can be trained along the axis of valence in the direction of reward. Participants genotyped for a common deletion variant of ADRA2b (linked to altered NE availability) experienced either an acute stress induction or a control procedure. Following stress induction, a Bbias probe^task was presented before and after training. In the bias probe task, participants made forced choice judgments (happy or angry) on emotional faces with varying degrees of ambiguity. For bias training, participants viewed unambiguously angry faces in a task exploiting visual adaptation effects. The results revealed an overall shift from a slightly positive bias in categorizing faces pretraining to a more positive bias after training. Carriers of the deletion variant overall showed a more positive bias than did the noncarriers. Follow-up analyses showed that pretraining bias was a significant predictor of bias change, with those who showed a more negative bias preadaptation changing more in a positive direction. Critically, this effect was observed under control but not under stress conditions. These results suggest that the NE/stress system plays an important role in influencing traitlike biases as well as short-term changes in the tendency to perceive ambiguous stimuli as being more rewarding than threatening. Keywords Emotion. Motivation. Norephinephrine. Reward Decades of research have supported the common observation that some people see the world through rose-colored glasses, and others through lenses tinted gray (e.g., Eysenck & Eysenck, 1985). In general, we are all more likely to attend to and remember emotionally and motivationally salient environmental cues (Markovic, Anderson, & Todd, 2014; Pourtois, Schettino, & Vuilleumier, 2013). Yet, when a cue is ambiguous in signaling reward or punishment, individuals

EPA is More Effective than DHA to Improve Depression-Like Behavior, Glia Cell Dysfunction and Hippcampal Apoptosis Signaling in a Chronic Stress-Induced Rat Model of Depression

“…Fourth, as mentioned previously, inflammation may play an important role in the etiology of depression [44]. The present study, for the first time, reported more profound anti-inflammatory effects of EPA than DHA on microglia M1-induced neuroinflammation, such as EPA decreasing IL-1β, IL-6, TNF-α, but DHA only reducing IL-1β levels in the hippocampus of depression model, which should be taken into account for a better clinical outcome.…”

Affectively Biased Competition: Sustained Attention is Tuned to Rewarding Expressions and is Not Modulated by Norepinephrine Receptor Gene Variant

“…It is worth noting that all of our previous studies on the influence of ADRA2B on attention and subjective perception tapped relatively rapid processes, whereas the effects of biased competition measured here emerged more slowly. Moreover, previous studies measuring effects of the deletion variant on emotional attention and perception engaged subjective judgments of emotional content (Ehlers, Ross, & Todd, 2018), or the relative level of noise overlaid on a visual stimulus (Todd et al, 2015), or rapid engagement of selective attentional prioritization of emotional content (Todd et al, 2013). In contrast, the present study required sustained attention to a neutral stimulus over the course of seconds, and therefore continuous inhibition of distraction by the emotional expression.…”

Affectively biased competition: sustained attention is tuned to rewarding expressions and is not modulated by norepinephrine receptor gene variant

“…It is worth noting that all of our previous studies on the influence of ADRA2B on attention and subjective perception tapped relatively rapid processes, whereas the effects of biased competition measured here emerged more slowly. Moreover, previous studies measuring effects of the deletion variant on emotional attention and perception engaged subjective judgments of emotional content (Ehlers, Ross, & Todd, 2018), or the relative level of noise overlaid on a visual stimulus (Todd et al, 2015), or rapid engagement of selective attentional prioritization of emotional content (Todd et al, 2013). In contrast, the present study required sustained attention to a neutral stimulus over the course of seconds, and therefore continuous inhibition of distraction by the emotional expression.…”