The role of dopamine in attentional and memory biases for emotional information.

Full Abstract

OBJECTIVE: Cognitive models suggest that biased processing of emotional information may play a role in the genesis and maintenance of psychotic symptoms. The role of dopamine and dopamine antagonists in the processing of such information remains unclear. The authors investigated the effect of a dopamine antagonist on perception of, and memory for, emotional information in healthy volunteers. METHOD: Thirty-three healthy male volunteers were randomly assigned to a single-blind intervention of either a single dose of the dopamine D(2)/D(3) antagonist amisulpride or placebo. An attentional blink task and an emotional memory task were then administered to assess the affective modulation of attention and memory, respectively. RESULTS: A significant interaction was observed between stimulus valence and drug on recognition memory accuracy; further contrasts revealed enhanced memory for aversive-arousing compared with neutral stimuli in the placebo but not the amisulpride group. No effect of amisulpride was observed on the perception of emotional stimuli. CONCLUSIONS: Amisulpride abolished the enhanced memory for emotionally arousing stimuli seen in the placebo group but had no effect on the perception of such stimuli. These results suggests that dopamine plays a significant role in biasing memory toward emotionally salient information and that dopamine antagonists may act by attenuating this bias.

Author information

Author/s: Gibbs, Ayana A (AA); Naudts, Kris H (KH); Spencer, Edgar P (EP); David, Anthony S (AS);

Affiliation: Section of Cognitive Neuropsychiatry, Division of Psychological Medicine, Institute of Psychiatry, P.O. Box 68, De Crespigny Park, London, UK SE5 8AF. a.gibbs(-atsign-)iop.kcl.ac.uk

Grants: 074562/Z/04/Z (Agency:Wellcome Trust)

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Comparative Study; Journal Article; Randomized Controlled Trial; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: The American journal of psychiatry (Am J Psychiatry), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2007-Oct; vol 164 (issue 10) : pp 1603-9; quiz 1624

Dates: Created 2007/09/27; Completed 2007/11/01;

PMID: 17898353, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 2/18/2009, IMS Date: )

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