Li Jialin, Yang Xi, Zhou Feng, Liu Congcong, Wei Zhenyu, Xin Fei, Daumann Bianca, Daumann Jörg, Kendrick Keith M, Becker Benjamin
The Clinical Hospital of the Chengdu Brain Science Institute, MOE Key Laboratory for Neuroinformation, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China.
LVR Clinics of Cologne, Cologne, Germany.
Neuropsychopharmacology. 2020 May;45(6):1026-1033. doi: 10.1038/s41386-020-0625-z. Epub 2020 Jan 29.
Cognitive control regulates cognitive and emotional systems to facilitate goal-directed behavior in the context of task-irrelevant distractors. Cognitive control deficits contribute to residual functional impairments across psychiatric disorders and represent a promising novel treatment target. Translational evidence suggests that modafinil may enhance performance in executive functions; however, differential effects on regulatory control in cognitive and emotional domains have not been examined. The present pre-registered randomized-controlled pharmacological fMRI trial examined differential effects of modafinil (single-dose, 200 mg) on cognitive and emotional conflict processing. To further separate objective cognitive enhancing effects from subjective performance perception, a metacognitive paradigm was employed. Results indicated that modafinil specifically enhanced cognitive conflict performance and concomitantly increased activation in the inferior frontal gyrus and its functional communication with the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex. Exploratory analysis further revealed modafinil-enhanced basolateral amygdala reactivity to cognitive conflict, with stronger reactivity being associated with higher cognitive conflict performance. Whereas modafinil enhanced cognitive performance in the metacognitive paradigm, confidence indices remained unaffected. Overall, the present results suggest that modafinil has the potential to enhance cognitive conflict processing while leaving emotional conflict processing unaffected. On the neural level modafinil enhanced the recruitment of a network engaged in general conflict and regulatory control processes, whereas effects on the amygdala may reflect improved arousal-mediated attention processes for conflicting information. The pattern of cognitive enhancing effects in the absence of effects on affective processing suggests a promising potential to enhance cognitive control in clinical populations.
认知控制调节认知和情绪系统，以便在存在与任务无关的干扰因素的情况下促进目标导向行为。认知控制缺陷导致了各种精神疾病中残留的功能障碍，并且是一个有前景的新型治疗靶点。转化医学证据表明，莫达非尼可能会提高执行功能的表现；然而，尚未研究其对认知和情绪领域调节控制的不同影响。本项预先注册的随机对照药理功能磁共振成像试验研究了莫达非尼（单剂量，200毫克）对认知和情绪冲突处理的不同影响。为了进一步将客观的认知增强效应与主观的表现感知区分开来，采用了一种元认知范式。结果表明，莫达非尼特异性地提高了认知冲突表现，并同时增加了额下回的激活及其与背内侧前额叶皮层的功能连接。探索性分析进一步揭示，莫达非尼增强了基底外侧杏仁核对认知冲突的反应性，更强的反应性与更高的认知冲突表现相关。虽然莫达非尼在元认知范式中提高了认知表现，但信心指数并未受到影响。总体而言，目前的结果表明，莫达非尼有潜力增强认知冲突处理，而不影响情绪冲突处理。在神经层面，莫达非尼增强了参与一般冲突和调节控制过程的网络的募集，而对杏仁核的影响可能反映了对冲突信息的唤醒介导的注意力过程的改善。在不影响情感处理的情况下的认知增强效应模式表明，在临床人群中增强认知控制具有有前景的潜力。
