Skip to main content

Umbrella menu

  • SfN.org
  • eNeuro
  • The Journal of Neuroscience
  • Neuronline
  • BrainFacts.org

Main menu

  • HOME
  • CONTENT
    • Early Release
    • Featured
    • Current Issue
    • Issue Archive
    • Collections
  • ALERTS
  • FOR AUTHORS
    • Preparing a Manuscript
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Fees
    • Journal Club
    • eLetters
    • Submit
  • EDITORIAL BOARD
  • ABOUT
    • Overview
    • Advertise
    • For the Media
    • Rights and Permissions
    • Privacy Policy
    • Feedback
  • SUBSCRIBE
  • SfN.org
  • eNeuro
  • The Journal of Neuroscience
  • Neuronline
  • BrainFacts.org

User menu

  • Log in
  • Subscribe
  • My alerts

Search

  • Advanced search
Journal of Neuroscience
  • Log in
  • Subscribe
  • My alerts
Journal of Neuroscience

Advanced Search

Submit a Manuscript
  • HOME
  • CONTENT
    • Early Release
    • Featured
    • Current Issue
    • Issue Archive
    • Collections
  • ALERTS
  • FOR AUTHORS
    • Preparing a Manuscript
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Fees
    • Journal Club
    • eLetters
    • Submit
  • EDITORIAL BOARD
  • ABOUT
    • Overview
    • Advertise
    • For the Media
    • Rights and Permissions
    • Privacy Policy
    • Feedback
  • SUBSCRIBE
PreviousNext
Articles, Behavioral/Cognitive

Catecholamine-Mediated Increases in Gain Enhance the Precision of Cortical Representations

Christopher M. Warren, Eran Eldar, Ruud L. van den Brink, Klodiana-Daphne Tona, Nic J. van der Wee, Eric J. Giltay, Martijn S. van Noorden, Jos A. Bosch, Robert C. Wilson, Jonathan D. Cohen and Sander Nieuwenhuis
Journal of Neuroscience 25 May 2016, 36 (21) 5699-5708; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3475-15.2016
Christopher M. Warren
1Department of Psychology, Leiden University, 2333 AK Leiden, The Netherlands,
2Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden University, Leiden, 2300 RC Leiden, The Netherlands,
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Eran Eldar
3Welcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, University College London, London WC1N 3BG, United Kingdom,
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Ruud L. van den Brink
1Department of Psychology, Leiden University, 2333 AK Leiden, The Netherlands,
2Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden University, Leiden, 2300 RC Leiden, The Netherlands,
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Klodiana-Daphne Tona
1Department of Psychology, Leiden University, 2333 AK Leiden, The Netherlands,
2Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden University, Leiden, 2300 RC Leiden, The Netherlands,
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Nic J. van der Wee
2Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden University, Leiden, 2300 RC Leiden, The Netherlands,
4Department of Psychiatry, Leiden University Medical Center, 2333 ZA Leiden, The Netherlands,
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Eric J. Giltay
4Department of Psychiatry, Leiden University Medical Center, 2333 ZA Leiden, The Netherlands,
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Eric J. Giltay
Martijn S. van Noorden
4Department of Psychiatry, Leiden University Medical Center, 2333 ZA Leiden, The Netherlands,
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Jos A. Bosch
5Department of Clinical Psychology, University of Amsterdam, 1018 XA Amsterdam, The Netherlands,
6Mannheim Institute of Public Health, Heidelberg University, 68167 Mannheim, Germany,
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Robert C. Wilson
7Department of Psychology, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721, and
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Jonathan D. Cohen
8Department of Psychology and
9Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08540
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Sander Nieuwenhuis
1Department of Psychology, Leiden University, 2333 AK Leiden, The Netherlands,
2Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden University, Leiden, 2300 RC Leiden, The Netherlands,
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Article
  • Figures & Data
  • Info & Metrics
  • eLetters
  • PDF
Loading

This article has a correction. Please see:

  • Correction: Warren et al., Catecholamine-Mediated Increases in Gain Enhance the Precision of Cortical Representations - July 20, 2016

Abstract

Neurophysiological evidence suggests that neuromodulators, such as norepinephrine and dopamine, increase neural gain in target brain areas. Computational models and prominent theoretical frameworks indicate that this should enhance the precision of neural representations, but direct empirical evidence for this hypothesis is lacking. In two functional MRI studies, we examine the effect of baseline catecholamine levels (as indexed by pupil diameter and manipulated pharmacologically) on the precision of object representations in the human ventral temporal cortex using angular dispersion, a powerful, multivariate metric of representational similarity (precision). We first report the results of computational model simulations indicating that increasing catecholaminergic gain should reduce the angular dispersion, and thus increase the precision, of object representations from the same category, as well as reduce the angular dispersion of object representations from distinct categories when distinct-category representations overlap. In Study 1 (N = 24), we show that angular dispersion covaries with pupil diameter, an index of baseline catecholamine levels. In Study 2 (N = 24), we manipulate catecholamine levels and neural gain using the norepinephrine transporter blocker atomoxetine and demonstrate consistent, causal effects on angular dispersion and brain-wide functional connectivity. Despite the use of very different methods of examining the effect of baseline catecholamine levels, our results show a striking convergence and demonstrate that catecholamines increase the precision of neural representations.

SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Norepinephrine and dopamine are among the most widely distributed and ubiquitous neuromodulators in the mammalian brain and have a profound and pervasive impact on cognition. Baseline catecholamine levels tend to increase with increasing task engagement in tasks involving perceptual decisions, yet there is currently no direct evidence of the specific impact of these increases in catecholamine levels on perceptual encoding. Our results fill this void by showing that catecholamines enhance the precision of encoding cortical object representations, and by suggesting that this effect is mediated by increases in neural gain, thus offering a mechanistic account of our key finding.

  • catecholamine
  • dopamine
  • fMRI
  • norepinephrine
  • perception
  • psychopharmacology
View Full Text
Back to top

In this issue

The Journal of Neuroscience: 36 (21)
Journal of Neuroscience
Vol. 36, Issue 21
25 May 2016
  • Table of Contents
  • Table of Contents (PDF)
  • About the Cover
  • Index by author
  • Advertising (PDF)
  • Ed Board (PDF)
Email

Thank you for sharing this Journal of Neuroscience article.

NOTE: We request your email address only to inform the recipient that it was you who recommended this article, and that it is not junk mail. We do not retain these email addresses.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Catecholamine-Mediated Increases in Gain Enhance the Precision of Cortical Representations
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from Journal of Neuroscience
(Your Name) thought you would be interested in this article in Journal of Neuroscience.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Print
View Full Page PDF
Article Alerts
Sign In to Email Alerts with your Email Address
Citation Tools
Catecholamine-Mediated Increases in Gain Enhance the Precision of Cortical Representations
Christopher M. Warren, Eran Eldar, Ruud L. van den Brink, Klodiana-Daphne Tona, Nic J. van der Wee, Eric J. Giltay, Martijn S. van Noorden, Jos A. Bosch, Robert C. Wilson, Jonathan D. Cohen, Sander Nieuwenhuis
Journal of Neuroscience 25 May 2016, 36 (21) 5699-5708; DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3475-15.2016

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
Respond to this article
Request Permissions
Share
Catecholamine-Mediated Increases in Gain Enhance the Precision of Cortical Representations
Christopher M. Warren, Eran Eldar, Ruud L. van den Brink, Klodiana-Daphne Tona, Nic J. van der Wee, Eric J. Giltay, Martijn S. van Noorden, Jos A. Bosch, Robert C. Wilson, Jonathan D. Cohen, Sander Nieuwenhuis
Journal of Neuroscience 25 May 2016, 36 (21) 5699-5708; DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3475-15.2016
del.icio.us logo Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo CiteULike logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Jump to section

  • Article
    • Abstract
    • Introduction
    • Materials and Methods
    • Results
    • Discussion
    • Footnotes
    • References
  • Figures & Data
  • Info & Metrics
  • eLetters
  • PDF

Keywords

  • catecholamine
  • dopamine
  • fMRI
  • norepinephrine
  • perception
  • psychopharmacology

Responses to this article

Respond to this article

Jump to comment:

No eLetters have been published for this article.

Related Articles

Cited By...

More in this TOC Section

Articles

  • Choice Behavior Guided by Learned, But Not Innate, Taste Aversion Recruits the Orbitofrontal Cortex
  • Maturation of Spontaneous Firing Properties after Hearing Onset in Rat Auditory Nerve Fibers: Spontaneous Rates, Refractoriness, and Interfiber Correlations
  • Insulin Treatment Prevents Neuroinflammation and Neuronal Injury with Restored Neurobehavioral Function in Models of HIV/AIDS Neurodegeneration
Show more Articles

Behavioral/Cognitive

  • Ventromedial prefrontal cortex drives the prioritization of self-associated stimuli in working memory
  • Visual attention modulates glutamate-glutamine levels in vestibular cortex: Evidence from magnetic resonance spectroscopy
  • FFA and OFA encode distinct types of face identity information
Show more Behavioral/Cognitive
  • Home
  • Alerts
  • Visit Society for Neuroscience on Facebook
  • Follow Society for Neuroscience on Twitter
  • Follow Society for Neuroscience on LinkedIn
  • Visit Society for Neuroscience on Youtube
  • Follow our RSS feeds

Content

  • Early Release
  • Current Issue
  • Issue Archive
  • Collections

Information

  • For Authors
  • For Advertisers
  • For the Media
  • For Subscribers

About

  • About the Journal
  • Editorial Board
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
  • Feedback
(JNeurosci logo)
(SfN logo)

Copyright © 2021 by the Society for Neuroscience.
JNeurosci Online ISSN: 1529-2401

The ideas and opinions expressed in JNeurosci do not necessarily reflect those of SfN or the JNeurosci Editorial Board. Publication of an advertisement or other product mention in JNeurosci should not be construed as an endorsement of the manufacturer’s claims. SfN does not assume any responsibility for any injury and/or damage to persons or property arising from or related to any use of any material contained in JNeurosci.