The Role of Stress Neuromodulators in Decision Making Under Risk and Selective Attention to Threat
Condition: Yohimbine; Hydrocortisone; Yohimbine + Hydrocortisone; Placebo
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      Incidental affective states, i.e., affective states can influence decision making and
      selective attention to threatening information. Acute stress is such an affective state and
      is a powerful contextual modulator of decision-making processes and selective attention to
      threat. In terms of physiological and neurohormonal changes, the stress response has been
      well characterized: Exposure to stress elicits an array of autonomic, endocrine, and
      behavioral responses. The physiological stress response is mediated by the
      hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and the locus coeruleus noradrenergic (LC-NA)
      system with cortisol and norepinephrine (NE) as their end products. There is compelling
      evidence that the stress hormones cortisol and NE influence cognitive processes. However,
      only very few studies so far used pharmacological approaches to specify the role of stress
      neuromodulators on decision making and selective attention to threat and these studies are
      hardly comparable due to differences in the experimental design, e.g., the decision making
      task used. Furthermore, the neural underpinnings of stress effects on decision making and
      selective attention to threat are uninvestigated so far. The aim of the proposed project is
      to clarify the role of the major stress neuromodulators, NE and cortisol, in their
      contribution to different processes related to decision making under risk and selective
      attention to threat. To this end, combined precise pharmacological stimulation, behavioral
      modeling, and fMRI methods will be applied to systematically disentangle the effects of
      stress hormones on risk attitudes and loss aversion as well as their relation to neural
      correlates of processing subjective value and risk. Using pharmacological manipulation, the
      influence of noradrenergic and glucocorticoid activity on decision making under risk at the
      behavioral, computational, and neural level will be investigated. In addition, the influence
      of noradrenergic and glucocorticoid activity on selective attention to threat at the
      behavioural and neural level using a dot-probe paradigm with fearful and neutral faces will
      be examined. Participants are randomly assigned to one of four groups: (A) yohimbine, (B)
      hydrocortisone, (C) yohimbine and hydrocortisone, or (D) placebo.
    


Intervention name(s): "Yohimbine"; "Hydrocortisone"; "Yohimbine + Hydrocortisone"; "Placebo"
Intervention type(s): Drug; Drug; Drug; Drug
Intervention description(s): Effects on neural correlates of decision-making under risk and selective attention to threat; Effects on neural correlates of decision-making under risk and selective attention to threat; Effects on neural correlates of decision-making under risk and selective attention to threat; Effects on neural correlates of decision-making under risk and selective attention to threat
Other intervention name(s): Pill (oral administration); Pill (oral administration); Pill (oral administration); Pill (oral administration)
Intervention MeSH terms: Hydrocortisone; Hydrocortisone 17-butyrate 21-propionate; Hydrocortisone acetate; Hydrocortisone hemisuccinate; Yohimbine
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: Double (Participant, Investigator)
Primary purpose: Basic Science