Working memory, cortical dopamine tone, and frontoparietal brain recruitment in post-traumatic stress disorder: a randomized controlled trial.

ABSTRACT: Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) leads to impairments in both cognitive and affective functioning. Animal work suggests that chronic stress reduces dopamine tone, and both animal and human studies argue that changes in dopamine tone influence working memory, a core executive function. These findings give rise to the hypothesis that increasing cortical dopamine tone in individuals with greater PTSD symptomatology should improve working memory performance. In this pharmacological functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, 30 US military veterans exhibiting a range of PTSD severity completed an emotional working memory task. Each subject received both placebo and the catechol-O-methyl transferase inhibitor tolcapone, which increases cortical dopamine tone, in randomized, double-

SUBMITTER: Westphal AJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8275779 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature