X. Neurobiological influences on thinking and decisions (4/3)

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• Virtual library folder on choice, decision-making, neuroscience
• Reports of Pathological Gambling, Hypersexuality, and Compulsive Shopping Associated With Dopamine Receptor Agonist Drugs
  Thomas J. Moore, Joseph Glenmullen, Donald R. Mattison. JAMA Intern Med. 2014;174(12):1930-1933 Abstract: Importance Severe impulse control disorders involving pathological gambling, hypersexuality, and compulsive shopping have been reported in association with the use of dopamine receptor agonist drugs in case series and retrospective patient surveys. These agents are used to treat Parkinson disease, restless leg syndrome, and hyperprolactinemia. Objectives To analyze serious adverse drug event reports about these impulse control disorders received by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and to assess the relationship of these case reports with the 6 FDA-approved dopamine receptor agonist drugs. Design, Setting, and Participants We conducted a retrospective disproportionality analysis based on the 2.7 million serious domestic and foreign adverse drug event reports from 2003 to 2012 extracted from the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System. Main Outcomes and Measures Cases were selected if they contained any of 10 preferred terms in the Medical Dictionary for Regulatory Activities (MedDRA) that described the abnormal behaviors. We used the proportional reporting ratio (PRR) to compare the proportion of target events to all serious events for the study drugs with a similar proportion for all other drugs. Results We identified 1580 events indicating impulse control disorders from the United States and 21 other countries:710 fordopamine receptor agonist drugs and 870 for other drugs. The dopamine receptor agonist drugs had a strong signal associated with these impulse control disorders (n = 710; PRR = 277.6, P < .001). The association was strongest for the dopamine agonists pramipexole (n = 410; PRR = 455.9, P < .001) and ropinirole (n = 188; PRR = 152.5, P < .001), with preferential affinity for the dopamine D3 receptor. A signal was also seen for aripiprazole, an antipsychotic classified as a partial agonist of the D3 receptor (n = 37; PRR = 8.6, P < .001). Conclusions and Relevance Our findings confirm and extend the evidence that dopamine receptor agonist drugs are associated with these specific impulse control disorders. At present, none of the dopamine receptor agonist drugs approved by the FDA have boxed warnings as part of their prescribing information. Our data, and data from prior studies, show the need for more prominent warnings.
• Family income, parental education and brain structure in children and adolescents
  Kimberly G Noble et al.Nature Neuroscience 18,773–778 (2015). From the abstract: We investigated relationships between socioeconomic factors and brain morphometry, independently of genetic ancestry, among a cohort of 1,099 typically developing individuals between 3 and 20 years of age. Income was logarithmically associated with brain surface area. Among children from lower income families, small differences in income were associated with relatively large differences in surface area, whereas, among children from higher income families, similar income increments were associated with smaller differences in surface area. These relationships were most prominent in regions supporting language, reading, executive functions and spatial skills; surface area mediated socioeconomic differences in certain neurocognitive abilities. These data imply that income relates most strongly to brain structure among the most disadvantaged children.
• Foundations of human reasoning in the prefrontal cortex
  Maël Donoso, Anne G. E. Collins, Etienne Koechlin. Science 27 Jun 2014;344(6191):1481-1486 (See also the Perspective by Hare, "Exploiting and exploring the options", p1446-47, http://science.sciencemag.org.libproxy.lib.unc.edu/content/344/6191/1446.full). Abstract: The prefrontal cortex (PFC) subserves reasoning in the service of adaptive behavior. Little is known, however, about the architecture of reasoning processes in the PFC. Using computational modeling and neuroimaging, we show here that the human PFC has two concurrent inferential tracks: (i) one from ventromedial to dorsomedial PFC regions that makes probabilistic inferences about the reliability of the ongoing behavioral strategy and arbitrates between adjusting this strategy versus exploring new ones from long-term memory, and (ii) another from polar to lateral PFC regions that makes probabilistic inferences about the reliability of two or three alternative strategies and arbitrates between exploring new strategies versus exploiting these alternative ones. The two tracks interact and, along with the striatum, realize hypothesis testing for accepting versus rejecting newly created strategies.
• Acute Stress Impairs Self-Control in Goal-Directed Choice by Altering Multiple Functional Connections within the Brain’s Decision Circuits
  Silvia U. Maier, Aidan B. Makwana, Todd A. Hare. Neuron. 5 August 2015;87(3):621–631 Summary: Important decisions are often made under stressful circumstances that might compromise self-regulatory behavior. Yet the neural mechanisms by which stress influences self-control choices are unclear. We investigated these mechanisms in human participants who faced self-control dilemmas over food reward while undergoing fMRI following stress. We found that stress increased the influence of immediately rewarding taste attributes on choice and reduced self-control. This choice pattern was accompanied by increased functional connectivity between ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and amygdala and striatal regions encoding tastiness. Furthermore, stress was associated with reduced connectivity between the vmPFC and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex regions linked to self-control success. Notably, alterations in connectivity pathways could be dissociated by their differential relationships with cortisol and perceived stress. Our results indicate that stress may compromise self-control decisions by both enhancing the impact of immediately rewarding attributes and reducing the efficacy of regions promoting behaviors that are consistent with long-term goals.
• Unlearning implicit social biases during sleep
  Xiaoqing Hu et al. Science, 29 May 2015;348(6238):1013-. “we investigated training to reduce implicit racial and gender bias … we conclude that memory reactivation during sleep enhances counter stereotype training and that maintaining a bias reduction is sleep-dependent.” Also, page 971 - Exploiting sleep to modify bad attitudes. Targeted memory reactivation of training-induced social counterbias during sleep. By Gordon B. Feld and Jan Born. “... this method can be used to break long-lived, highly pervasive response habits deeply rooted in memory …” http://science.sciencemag.org/content/348/6238/971
• NIH Brain Initiative YouTube Channel
• The Brain, with David Eagleman
  Neuroscientist David Eagleman explores the human brain in an epic series that reveals the ultimate story of us, why we feel and think the things we do. This ambitious project blends science with innovative visual effects and compelling personal stories, and addresses some big questions. By understanding the human brain, we can come close to understanding humanity. (6 episodes; requires PBS login to view)
• Political partisanship influences perception of biracial candidates' skin tonel
  Eugene M. Caruso, Nicole L. Mead, and Emily Balcetis. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. December 1, 2009;106(48):20168–20173. Abstract: People tend to view members of their own political group more positively than members of a competing political group. In this article, we demonstrate that political partisanship influences people's visual representations of a biracial political candidate's skin tone. In three studies, participants rated the representativeness of photographs of a hypothetical (Study 1) or real (Barack Obama; Studies 2 and 3) biracial political candidate. Unbeknownst to participants, some of the photographs had been altered to make the candidate's skin tone either lighter or darker than it was in the original photograph. Participants whose partisanship matched that of the candidate they were evaluating consistently rated the lightened photographs as more representative of the candidate than the darkened photographs, whereas participants whose partisanship did not match that of the candidate showed the opposite pattern. For evaluations of Barack Obama, the extent to which people rated lightened photographs as representative of him was positively correlated with their stated voting intentions and reported voting behavior in the 2008 Presidential election. This effect persisted when controlling for political ideology and racial attitudes. These results suggest that people's visual representations of others are related to their own preexisting beliefs and to the decisions they make in a consequential context.
• *This American Life - 220: Testosterone
  NPR, This American Life, August 30, 2002 Prologue: Producer Alex Blumberg explains that he wanted to do this show because of his conflicted relationship with his own testosterone. He tells host Ira Glass that the reasons go back to a girl in his eighth-grade homeroom and the 1970s seminal feminist novel The Women's Room. We also hear from a man who stopped producing testosterone due to a medical treatment and found that his entire personality was altered. (9 minutes) Act One: Life At Zero: The interview with a man who lost his testosterone continues. He explains that life without testosterone is life without desire—desire for everything: food, conversation, even TV. And he says life without desire is unexpectedly pleasant. The man first wrote about his experiences, anonymously, in GQ Magazine. (8 minutes) Act Two: Infinite Gent: An interview with a transgender man, who started life as female and began taking testosterone injections several years ago. He explains how testosterone changed his views on nature vs. nurture for good. (17 minutes) Act Three: Contest-osterone: The men and women on staff at This American Life decide to get their testosterone levels tested, to see who has the most and least, and to see if personality traits actually do match up with hormone levels. It turns out to be an exercise that in retrospect, we might not recommend to other close-knit groups of friends or co-workers. (12 minutes) Act Four: Learning to Shut Up: Novelist Miriam Toews, author of The X Letters (which appeared in an earlier episode of the show), tells the story of a road trip she took with her 15-year-old son. Her most recent book is called All My Puny Sorrows. (11 minutes)
• *Dan Ariely: Are we in control of our own decisions? (17 min)
  TED, December 2008. Behavioral economist Dan Ariely, the author of Predictably Irrational, uses classic visual illusions and his own counterintuitive (and sometimes shocking) research findings to show how we're not as rational as we think when we make decisions.