1. Love to Win or Hate to Lose? Asymmetry of Dopamine D2 Receptor Binding Predicts Sensitivity to Reward versus Punishment
- Author
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Tomer, Rachel, Slagter, Heleen A, Christian, Bradley T, Fox, Andrew S, King, Carlye R, Murali, Dhanabalan, Gluck, Mark A, and Davidson, Richard J
- Subjects
Biomedical and Clinical Sciences ,Applied and Developmental Psychology ,Biological Psychology ,Social and Personality Psychology ,Psychology ,Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Sciences ,Brain Disorders ,Clinical Research ,Neurosciences ,Behavioral and Social Science ,Basic Behavioral and Social Science ,1.2 Psychological and socioeconomic processes ,Underpinning research ,Mental health ,Adult ,Brain ,Female ,Forecasting ,Hate ,Humans ,Learning ,Love ,Male ,Motivation ,Photic Stimulation ,Protein Binding ,Punishment ,Receptors ,Dopamine D2 ,Reward ,Young Adult ,Cognitive Sciences ,Experimental Psychology ,Biological psychology ,Cognitive and computational psychology - Abstract
Humans show consistent differences in the extent to which their behavior reflects a bias toward appetitive approach-related behavior or avoidance of aversive stimuli [Elliot, A. J. Approach and avoidance motivation. In A. J. Elliot (Ed.), Handbook of approach and avoidance motivation (pp. 3-14). New York: Psychology Press, 2008]. We examined the hypothesis that in healthy participants this motivational bias (assessed by self-report and by a probabilistic learning task that allows direct comparison of the relative sensitivity to reward and punishment) reflects lateralization of dopamine signaling. Using [F-18]fallypride to measure D2/D3 binding, we found that self-reported motivational bias was predicted by the asymmetry of frontal D2 binding. Similarly, striatal and frontal asymmetries in D2 dopamine receptor binding, rather than absolute binding levels, predicted individual differences in learning from reward versus punishment. These results suggest that normal variation in asymmetry of dopamine signaling may, in part, underlie human personality and cognition.
- Published
- 2014