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Acute serotonin depletion releases motivated inhibition of response vigour

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Abstract

Rationale

The neurotransmitter serotonin has long been implicated in the motivational control of behaviour. Recent theories propose that the role of serotonin can be understood in terms of an interaction between a motivational and a behavioural activation axis. Experimental support for these ideas, however, has been mixed.

Objectives

In the current study, we aimed to investigate the role of serotonin (5HT) in behavioural vigour as a function of incentive motivation.

Methods

We employed dietary acute tryptophan depletion (ATD) to lower the 5HT precursor tryptophan during the performance of a speeded visual discrimination task. Feedback valence and feedback probability were manipulated independently and cued prior to target onset. On feedback trials, fast correct responses led to either reward or avoidance of punishment, while slow or incorrect responses led to reward omission or punishment.

Results

We show that behavioural responding is inhibited under high incentive motivation (i.e. high-feedback probability) at baseline 5HT levels and that lowering these leads to behavioural disinhibition, while leaving accuracy unaffected. Surprisingly, there were no differential effects of motivational valence, with 5HT depletion releasing behavioural inhibition under both appetitive and aversive motivation.

Conclusions

Our findings extend current theories on the role of 5HT in behavioural inhibition by showing that reductions in serotonin lead to increased behavioural vigour only if there is a motivational drive to inhibit behaviour at baseline.

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Acknowledgements

HdO and RC designed the study; HdO, KS and DG collected the data; HdO and JS analysed the behavioural data; DF performed the plasma amino-acid analysis; HdO, JS and RC wrote the manuscript. This study was supported by a Research Vidi Grant to RC and a Research Veni Grant to HdO from the Innovational Research Incentives Scheme of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research as well as a Human Frontiers Science Program grant to Kae Nakamura, Nathaniel Daw and RC, and a James McDonnell scholar award to RC. We wish to thank all who kindly participated in this research. RC has been a consultant to AbbVie and Pfizer but is not an employee or a stock shareholder. We thank Sean Fallon and Peter Dayan for helpful discussions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands

    Hanneke E. M. den Ouden, Jennifer C. Swart, Dirk E. M. Geurts & Roshan Cools

  2. Department of Psychiatry, Oxford University, Oxford, UK

    Kristin Schmidt

  3. Department of Clinical Chemistry, Erasmus University Medical Centre, Rotterdam, Netherlands

    Durk Fekkes

  4. Department of Psychiatry, Erasmus University Medical Centre, Rotterdam, Netherlands

    Durk Fekkes

  5. Department of Psychiatry, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Center, Nijmegen, Netherlands

    Dirk E. M. Geurts & Roshan Cools

Authors
  1. Hanneke E. M. den Ouden
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  2. Jennifer C. Swart
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  3. Kristin Schmidt
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  4. Durk Fekkes
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  5. Dirk E. M. Geurts
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  6. Roshan Cools
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hanneke E. M. den Ouden.

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den Ouden, H.E.M., Swart, J.C., Schmidt, K. et al. Acute serotonin depletion releases motivated inhibition of response vigour. Psychopharmacology 232, 1303–1312 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-014-3762-4

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