Roshan Cools: Dopamine’s Roles in Cognitive Control, Motivation, Decision-Making, ADHD, and PD

Dopamine is best known as a neurotransmitter involved in the experiencing of pleasure and reward, and for its role in addiction to drugs, gambling, food, etc.  But dopamine is also very important in the brain’s ability to evaluate computational tradeoffs (cost versus benefit) and make decisions.  In this episode Roshan Cools a Professor of cognitive neuropsychiatry at Radbout University in the Netherlands talks about how dopamine normally controls the neuronal circuits in the striatum and prefrontal cortex that regulate motivation and cognitive control. By combining PET imaging to measure relative dopamine release with various cognitive control tasks and administration of drugs such as methylphenidate (Ritilin) that affect dopamine signaling  she found that every individual has their own dopamine ‘set point’. She talks about how dopaminergic drugs enhance cognitive control in ADHD patients but impair cognitive control in patients with Parkinson’s disease.  We also talk about potential pharmacological and behavioral modifications to optimize cognitive control in healthy people. 

LINKS

Professor Cools web page:

https://www.roshancools.com/

Chemistry of the adaptive mind:

https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0896-6273%2819%2930838-4

Dopamine’s role in making cost versus benefit decisions:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8282630/pdf/nihms-1697802.pdf