TY  - JOUR
A1  - Grimm, Oliver
A1  - Nägele, Magdalena Maria
A1  - Küpper-Tetzel, Lea
A1  - Greck, Moritz de
A1  - Plichta, Michael M.
A1  - Reif, Andreas
T1  - No effect of a dopaminergic modulation fMRI task by amisulpride and L-DOPA on reward anticipation in healthy volunteers
T2  - Psychopharmacology
N2  - Rationale: Dysregulation of dopaminergic neurotransmission, specifically altered reward processing assessed via the reward anticipation in the MID task, plays a central role in the etiopathogenesis of neuropsychiatric disorders. Objectives: We hypothesized to find a difference in the activity level of the reward system (measured by the proxy reward anticipation) under drug administration versus placebo, in that amisulpride reduces, and L-DOPA enhances, its activity. Methods: We studied the influence of dopamine agonist L-DOPA and the antagonist amisulpride on the reward system using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during a monetary incentive delay (MID) task in n = 45 healthy volunteers in a randomized, blinded, cross-over study. Results: The MID paradigm elicits strong activation in reward-dependent structures (such as ventral striatum, putamen, caudate, anterior insula) during reward anticipation. The placebo effect demonstrated the expected significant blood oxygen level–dependent activity in reward-dependent brain regions. Neither amisulpride nor L-DOPA led to significant changes in comparison with the placebo condition. This was true for whole-brain analysis as well as analysis of a pre-defined nucleus accumbens region-of-interest mask. Conclusion: The present results cast doubt on the sensitivity of reward anticipation contrast in the MID task for assessing dopamine-specific changes in healthy volunteers by pharmaco-fMRI. While our task was not well-suited for detailed analysis of the outcome phase, we provide reasonable arguments that the lack of effect in the anticipation phase is not due to an inefficient task but points to unexpected behavior of the reward system during pharmacological challenge. Group differences of reward anticipation should therefore not be seen as simple representatives of dopaminergic states.
KW  - Reward
KW  - Dopamine
KW  - Monetary incentive delay
KW  - Striatum
KW  - L-DOPA
KW  - Amisulpride
Y1  - 2020
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/63620
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-636204
SN  - 1432-2072
N1  - Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement n° 667302: Comorbid Conditions of ADHD (CoCA)).
VL  - 238.2020
IS  - 5
SP  - 1333
EP  - 1342
PB  - Springer
CY  - Berlin ; Heidelberg ; New York, NY
ER  -