Probabilistic reversal learning under acute tryptophan depletion in healthy humans: a conventional analysis
Publication: Journal of Psychopharmacology
Kanen JW, Arntz FE, Yellowlees R, Cardinal RN, Price A, Christmas DM, Sahakian BJ, Apergis-Schoute AM, Robbins TW
18 February 2020
The involvement of serotonin in responses to negative feedback is well established. Acute serotonin reuptake inhibition has enhanced sensitivity to negative feedback (SNF), modelled by behaviour in probabilistic reversal learning (PRL) paradigms. Whilst experiments employing acute tryptophan depletion (ATD) in humans, to reduce serotonin synthesis, have shown no clear effect on SNF, sample sizes have been small.
The researchers studied a large sample of healthy volunteers, male and female, and found ATD had no effect on core behavioural measures in PRL.
These results indicate that ATD effects can differ from other manipulations of serotonin expected to have a parallel or opposing action.
