Linking dopaminergic reward signals to the development of attentional bias: A positron emission tomographic study
Brian A. Anderson,
Hiroto Kuwabara,
Dean F. Wong,
Joshua Roberts,
Arman Rahmim,
James R. Brašić,
Susan M. Courtney
Affiliations
Brian A. Anderson
Department of Psychology, Texas A&M University, 4235 TAMU, College Station, TX 77843, USA; Corresponding author.
Hiroto Kuwabara
Section of High Resolution Brain PET, Division of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 601 N. Caroline St., Baltimore, MD 21287, USA
Dean F. Wong
Section of High Resolution Brain PET, Division of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 601 N. Caroline St., Baltimore, MD 21287, USA; Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 733 N. Broadway, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA; Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 733 N. Broadway, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA
Joshua Roberts
Section of High Resolution Brain PET, Division of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 601 N. Caroline St., Baltimore, MD 21287, USA
Arman Rahmim
Section of High Resolution Brain PET, Division of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 601 N. Caroline St., Baltimore, MD 21287, USA
James R. Brašić
Section of High Resolution Brain PET, Division of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 601 N. Caroline St., Baltimore, MD 21287, USA
Susan M. Courtney
Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 733 N. Broadway, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA; Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, 3400 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD 21218, USA; F.M. Kirby Research Center, Kennedy Krieger Institute, 707 N. Broadway, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA
The attention system is shaped by reward history, such that learned reward cues involuntarily draw attention. Recent research has begun to uncover the neural mechanisms by which learned reward cues compete for attention, implicating dopamine (DA) signaling within the dorsal striatum. How these elevated priority signals develop in the brain during the course of learning is less well understood, as is the relationship between value-based attention and the experience of reward during learning. We hypothesized that the magnitude of the striatal DA response to reward during learning contributes to the development of a learned attentional bias towards the cue that predicted it, and examined this hypothesis using positron emission tomography with [11C]raclopride. We measured changes in dopamine release for rewarded versus unrewarded visual search for color-defined targets as indicated by the density and distribution of the available D2/D3 receptors. We then tested for correlations of individual differences in this measure of reward-related DA release to individual differences in the degree to which previously reward-associated but currently task-irrelevant stimuli impair performance in an attention task (i.e., value-driven attentional bias), revealing a significant relationship in the right anterior caudate. The degree to which reward-related DA release was right hemisphere lateralized was also predictive of later attentional bias. Our findings provide support for the hypothesis that value-driven attentional bias can be predicted from reward-related DA release during learning.
