Department of Psychology, University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America.
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2022 Oct 5;17(10):e0275027. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0275027. eCollection 2022.
Many mental health disorders are characterized by an impaired ability, or willingness, to exert effort to obtain rewards. This impairment is modeled in effort-based decision tasks, and neuropharmacological studies implicate dopamine in this process. However, other transmitter systems such as opioidergic and cholinergic systems have received less attention. Here, in two separate studies we tested the acute effects of naltrexone and nicotine on effort-based decision-making in healthy adults. In Study 1, we compared naltrexone (50mg and 25mg) to placebo, and in Study 2, a pilot study, we compared nicotine (7mg) to placebo. In both studies, participants completed the Effort Expenditure for Rewards Task (EEfRT), which measured effort-based decision-making related to monetary rewards. Although subjects expended greater effort for larger reward magnitude and when there was a higher probability of receiving the reward, neither naltrexone nor nicotine affected willingness to exert effort for monetary rewards. Although the drugs produced significant and typical drug effects on measures of mood and behavior, they did not alter effort-based decision-making. This has implications both for the clinical use of these drugs, as well as for understanding the neuropharmacology of effort-related behavior.
许多精神健康障碍的特点是努力获取奖励的能力或意愿受损。这种损伤在基于努力的决策任务中得到建模，神经药理学研究表明多巴胺在此过程中起作用。然而，其他递质系统，如阿片类和胆碱能系统，受到的关注较少。在这里，我们在两项独立的研究中测试了纳曲酮和尼古丁对健康成年人基于努力的决策的急性影响。在研究 1 中，我们将纳曲酮（50mg 和 25mg）与安慰剂进行了比较，在研究 2 中，一项试点研究，我们将尼古丁（7mg）与安慰剂进行了比较。在这两项研究中，参与者都完成了奖励努力支出任务（EEfRT），该任务测量了与金钱奖励相关的基于努力的决策。尽管参与者为更大的奖励幅度和更高的奖励获得概率付出了更多的努力，但纳曲酮和尼古丁都不会影响他们为金钱奖励付出努力的意愿。尽管这些药物对情绪和行为的测量产生了显著和典型的药物作用，但它们并没有改变基于努力的决策。这对这些药物的临床应用以及对努力相关行为的神经药理学理解都有影响。
