Dopaminergic modulation of belief-relevant cognitive processing: implications for the psychosis-spectrum

中边缘多巴胺系统的改变，特别是突触前多巴胺合成的增加，一直与精神病有关，一些模型通过异常显著性、奖励预测或联想学习将该系统与妄想和幻觉联系起来。然而，由于妄想被认为是信仰的病态，这也表明这个系统在正常信仰形成的组成部分中起着作用。通过药理调节，本项目旨在了解中边缘多巴胺能通路的改变对非临床和亚临床范围内信念相关认知过程的影响，以帮助了解多巴胺在信念全谱中的作用-连接典型和病理信念的连续体。我们将测试以下假设：1)多巴胺调节与信念的更大变化有关，与精神病谱更密切相关，以及一般信念的感知自我相关性；（ii）这些影响将通过基线分裂型测量来调节-表明多巴胺系统在临床谱外对非典型信念的易感性中的作用。

Alterations to the mesolimbic dopamine system, particularly increased pre-synaptic dopamine synthesis, have been consistently associated with psychosis and several models associate this system with delusions and hallucinations through aberrant salience, reward prediction or associative learning. However, as delusions are considered pathologies of belief, this would also suggest that this system has a role in components of normal belief formation. Through the use of pharmacological modulation, this project aims to understand the effect of alteration to the mesolimbic dopaminergic pathway on belief-related cognitive processes in the non-clinical and subclinical range to help understand the role of dopamine in the full spectrum of belief - linking the continuum of typical and pathological belief. We will test the hypothesis that i) dopamine modulation is associated with greater changes in beliefs more closely related to the psychosis spectrum, and the perceived self-relevance of beliefs in general; (ii) that these effects will be modulated by baseline schizotypy measures - indicating a role for the dopamine system in susceptibility to atypical beliefs outside the clinical spectrum.