Increasing dopamine levels in the brain improves feedback-based procedural learning in healthy participants: An artificial-grammar-learning experiment

de Vries MH, Ulte C, Zwitserlood P, Szymanski B, Knecht S

Forschungsartikel (Zeitschrift) | Peer reviewed

Zusammenfassung

Recently, an increasing number of studies have suggested a role for the basal ganglia and related dopamine inputs in procedural learning, specifically when learning occurs through trial-by-trial feedback (Shohamy, Myers, Kalanithi, & Gluck. (2008). Basal ganglia and dopamine contributions to probabilistic category learning. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 32, 219-236). A necessary relationship has however only been demonstrated in patient studies. In the present study, we show for the first time that increasing dopamine levels in the brain improves the gradual acquisition of complex information in healthy participants. We implemented two artificial-grammar-learning tasks, one with and one without performance feedback. Learning was improved after levodopa intake for the feedback-based learning task only, suggesting that dopamine plays a specific role in trial-by-trial feedback-based learning. This provides promising directions for future studies on dopaminergic modulation of cognitive functioning. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Details zur Publikation

FachzeitschriftNeuropsychologia
Jahrgang / Bandnr. / Volume48
Ausgabe / Heftnr. / Issue11
Seitenbereich3193-3197
StatusVeröffentlicht
Veröffentlichungsjahr2010 (30.09.2010)
Sprache, in der die Publikation verfasst istEnglisch
StichwörterLevodopa Implicit learning Feedback Dopaminergic learning Neuropharmacological modulation Striatum parkinsons-disease basal ganglia memory levodopa humans

Autor*innen der Universität Münster

Zwitserlood, Pienie
Professur für Psycholinguistik und kognitive Neurowissenschaft (Prof. Zwitserlood)