1. Neuroscience

Dopamine enhances model-free credit assignment through boosting of retrospective model-based inference

  1. Lorenz Deserno  Is a corresponding author
  2. Rani Moran  Is a corresponding author
  3. Jochen Michely
  4. Ying Lee
  5. Peter Dayan
  6. Raymond J Dolan
  1. Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Germany
  2. University College London, United Kingdom
  3. Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Germany
  4. TU Dresden, Germany
  5. Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Germany
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.67778
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  1. Lorenz Deserno
  2. Rani Moran
  3. Jochen Michely
  4. Ying Lee
  5. Peter Dayan
  6. Raymond J Dolan
(2021)
Dopamine enhances model-free credit assignment through boosting of retrospective model-based inference
eLife 10:e67778.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.67778
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Abstract

Dopamine is implicated in representing model-free (MF) reward prediction errors a as well as influencing model-based (MB) credit assignment and choice. Putative cooperative interactions between MB and MF systems include a guidance of MF credit assignment by MB inference. Here, we used a double-blind, placebo-controlled, within-subjects design to test an hypothesis that enhancing dopamine levels boosts the guidance of MF credit assignment by MB inference. In line with this, we found that levodopa enhanced guidance of MF credit assignment by MB inference, without impacting MF and MB influences directly. This drug effect correlated negatively with a dopamine-dependent change in purely MB credit assignment, possibly reflecting a trade-off between these two MB components of behavioural control. Our findings of a dopamine boost in MB inference guidance of MF learning highlights a novel DA influence on MB-MF cooperative interactions.

Data availability

Necessary source data files are openly available at: https://osf.io/4dfkv/.

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Lorenz Deserno

    Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
    For correspondence
    deserno_l@ukw.de
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-7392-5280

  2. Rani Moran

    Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, University College London, London, United Kingdom
    For correspondence
    rani.moran@gmail.com
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-7641-2402

  3. Jochen Michely

    Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-3072-2330

  4. Ying Lee

    Psychiatry and Psychology, TU Dresden, Dresden, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-9491-4919

  5. Peter Dayan

    Max Planck Ring 8, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-3476-1839

  6. Raymond J Dolan

    The Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, University College London, London, United Kingdom
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-9356-761X

Funding

Wellcome Trust (098362/Z/12/Z)

  • Raymond J Dolan

Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (Open-access funding)

  • Lorenz Deserno
  • Rani Moran
  • Peter Dayan
  • Raymond J Dolan

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (402170461)

  • Lorenz Deserno
  • Raymond J Dolan

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Human subjects: The study was approved by the University College London Research Ethics Committee (Project ID 11285/001). Subjects gave written informed consent before the experiment.

Reviewing Editor

  1. Thorsten Kahnt, Northwestern University, United States

Publication history

  1. Preprint posted: January 17, 2021 (view preprint)
  2. Received: February 22, 2021
  3. Accepted: December 8, 2021
  4. Accepted Manuscript published: December 9, 2021 (version 1)
  5. Accepted Manuscript updated: December 20, 2021 (version 2)
  6. Version of Record published: January 13, 2022 (version 3)

Copyright

© 2021, Deserno et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

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  1. Lorenz Deserno
  2. Rani Moran
  3. Jochen Michely
  4. Ying Lee
  5. Peter Dayan
  6. Raymond J Dolan
(2021)
Dopamine enhances model-free credit assignment through boosting of retrospective model-based inference
eLife 10:e67778.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.67778

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