Abstract
Despite that a wealth of evidence links striatal dopamine to individualś reward learning performance in non-social environments, the neurochemical underpinnings of such learning during social interaction are unknown. Here, we show that the administration of 300 mg of the dopamine precursor L-DOPA to 200 healthy male subjects influences learning about a partners’ prosocial preferences in a novel social interaction task, which is akin to a repeated trust game. We found learning to be modulated by a well-established genetic marker of striatal dopamine levels, the 40-bp variable number tandem repeats polymorphism of the dopamine transporter (DAT1 polymorphism). In particular, we found that L-DOPA improves learning in 10/10R genoype subjects, who are assumed to have lower endogenous striatal dopamine levels and impairs learning in 9/10R genotype subjects, who are assumed to have higher endogenous dopamine levels. These findings provide first evidence for a critical role of dopamine in learning whether an interaction partner has a prosocial or a selfish personality. The applied pharmacogenetic approach may open doors to new ways of studying psychiatric disorders such as psychosis, which is characterized by distorted perceptions of others’ prosocial attitudes.
Highlights
Finding generic prosocial interaction partners and distinguishing them from selfish ones is of major importance in our social and economic well-being
Dopaminergic Effects on Learning Performance Having established that player As successfully learn about the prosocial preferences of their partners, we looked at the overall learning performance as measured by As’ total earnings in the task
We found that L-DOPA effects on earnings depend on DAT1 genotype and on partner type (interaction effect L-DOPA6DAT16partner type on total earnings, F(1,176) = 4.65, p,0.032, partial eta-square = 0.026)
Summary
Finding generic prosocial interaction partners and distinguishing them from selfish ones is of major importance in our social and economic well-being. Activation in the striatum predicts future trust decisions [10], suggesting that striatal activity might signal the rewards of positive social feedback and thereby guides future decisions. It appears that reward learning based on social outcomes (e.g., social approval, positive emotional responses and positive social feedback in repeated interactions) is coded in reward circuitry as if feedback was based on non-social outcomes [11,12,13]. There is much reason to believe that a pharmacological manipulation of striatal dopamine modulates learning about others’ prosocial preferences by relying fundamentally on a basic probabilistic reward-learning mechanism
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
