In conclusion , a number of new active drugs were found to improve some cognitive functions , in particular verbal episodic memory .
Pharmacological cognitive enhancement refers to improvement in cognitive functions after drug use in healthy individuals .
This popular topic attracts attention both from the general public and the scientific community .
The objective was to explore innovative mechanisms of psychostimulant 's action , whose potential effectiveness was assessed in r and omized placebo-controlled trials ( RCTs ) .
Dopaminergic modulation of probabilistic reasoning and overconfidence in errors: a double-blind study.
INTRODUCTION Reasoning biases such as jumping to conclusions ( JTC ) and overconfidence in errors have been well replicated in patients with delusions . However , their relation to dopaminergic activity , central to pathophysiologic models of psychosis , has not yet been investigated . This study aim ed to examine the effects of a dopaminergic agonist ( L-dopa ) and a dopaminergic antagonist ( haloperidol ) on the JTC bias and overconfidence in errors after single-dose administration in healthy individuals . METHODS The study used a r and omized , double-blind , placebo-controlled , 3-way crossover design . Participants were 36 healthy individuals aged 18 - 36 years . The variables of interest were draws to decision and probability threshold to decision on a computerized variant of the beads task and the number of high-confident incorrect responses on a visual memory task . RESULTS There were no significant effects of substance on draws to decision and probability threshold to decision . A significant effect emerged for high-confident incorrect responses in the memory task ; pairwise comparisons indicated a significant reduction of the number of high-confident incorrect responses after administration of haloperidol vs l-dopa and placebo . CONCLUSIONS This is the first study to investigate the direct effects of dopaminergic drugs on reasoning biases . The JTC bias and overconfidence in errors showed a differential pattern of dopaminergic modulation , suggesting that they represent different facets of reasoning abnormalities that interact with each other to produce delusions in susceptible individuals
In conclusion , a number of new active drugs were found to improve some cognitive functions , in particular verbal episodic memory .
Pharmacological cognitive enhancement refers to improvement in cognitive functions after drug use in healthy individuals .
This popular topic attracts attention both from the general public and the scientific community .
The objective was to explore innovative mechanisms of psychostimulant 's action , whose potential effectiveness was assessed in r and omized placebo-controlled trials ( RCTs ) .