July 2009, Volume 196, Issue 3, pp 467-474,
Open Access
This content is freely available online to anyone, anywhere at any time.
Date:
31 May 2009
Dopamine and inhibitory action control: evidence from spontaneous eye blink rates
Abstract
The inhibitory control of actions has been claimed to rely on dopaminergic pathways. Given that this hypothesis is mainly based on patient and drug studies, some authors have questioned its validity and suggested that beneficial effects of dopaminergic stimulants on response inhibition may be limited to cases of suboptimal inhibitory functioning. We present evidence that, in carefully selected healthy adults, spontaneous eyeblink rate, a marker of central dopaminergic functioning, reliably predicts the efficiency in inhibiting unwanted action tendencies in a stop-signal task. These findings support the assumption of a modulatory role for dopamine in inhibitory action control.
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- Title
- Dopamine and inhibitory action control: evidence from spontaneous eye blink rates
- Open Access
- Available under Open Access This content is freely available online to anyone, anywhere at any time.
- Journal
-
Experimental Brain Research
Volume 196, Issue 3 , pp 467-474
- Cover Date
- 2009-07-01
- DOI
- 10.1007/s00221-009-1862-x
- Print ISSN
- 0014-4819
- Online ISSN
- 1432-1106
- Publisher
- Springer-Verlag
- Additional Links
- Topics
- Keywords
-
- Response inhibition
- Dopamine
- Spontaneous eyeblink
- Industry Sectors
- Authors
- Author Affiliations
-
- 1. Cognitive Psychology Unit, Department of Psychology, Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden University, Postbus 9555, 2300 RB, Leiden, The Netherlands
- 2. Psychology Department, Amsterdam Center for the Study of Adaptive Control in Brain and Behaviour (Acacia), Universiteit van Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
