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Dopaminergic Modulation of Decision Making and Subjective Well-Being

Rutledge, RB; Skandali, N; Dayan, P; Dolan, RJ; (2015) Dopaminergic Modulation of Decision Making and Subjective Well-Being. Journal of Neuroscience , 35 (27) pp. 9811-9822. 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0702-15.2015. Green open access

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Abstract

The neuromodulator dopamine has a well established role in reporting appetitive prediction errors that are widely considered in terms of learning. However, across a wide variety of contexts, both phasic and tonic aspects of dopamine are likely to exert more immediate effects that have been less well characterized. Of particular interest is dopamine's influence on economic risk taking and on subjective well-being, a quantity known to be substantially affected by prediction errors resulting from the outcomes of risky choices. By boosting dopamine levels using levodopa (l-DOPA) as human subjects made economic decisions and repeatedly reported their momentary happiness, we show here an effect on both choices and happiness. Boosting dopamine levels increased the number of risky options chosen in trials involving potential gains but not trials involving potential losses. This effect could be better captured as increased Pavlovian approach in an approach-avoidance decision model than as a change in risk preferences within an established prospect theory model. Boosting dopamine also increased happiness resulting from some rewards. Our findings thus identify specific novel influences of dopamine on decision making and emotion that are distinct from its established role in learning.

Type: Article
Title: Dopaminergic Modulation of Decision Making and Subjective Well-Being
Location: United States
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0702-15.2015
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0702-15.2015
Language: English
Additional information: Copyright © 2015 Rutledge et al. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium provided that the original work is properly attributed.
Keywords: decision making, dopamine, reward prediction error, subjective well-being, Adult, Avoidance Learning, Decision Making, Dopamine, Dopamine Agents, Dose-Response Relationship, Drug, Double-Blind Method, Female, Games, Experimental, Happiness, Humans, Levodopa, Male, Questionnaires, Reward, Statistics, Nonparametric, Young Adult
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology > Imaging Neuroscience
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1472663
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