ArticleeLife2020
Dopaminergic modulation of the exploration/exploitation trade-off in human decision-making.
Article in eLife, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 60 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
60 citing papers in PubMed.
- Acetylcholine and noradrenaline enhance foraging optimality in humans.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Trial
- The catecholamine precursor Tyrosine reduces autonomic arousal and decreases decision thresholds in reinforcement learning and temporal discounting.PLoS computational biology · 2022Trial
- Self-relevance dynamically biases exploration and exploitation in value-based decisions.Psychological research · 2026Article
- Neurobehavioral differences in value-based decision making between people with cocaine use disorder and controls.Experimental and clinical psychopharmacology · 2026Article
- Dopamine depletion in Parkinson's increases directed but not random exploration.Science advances · 2026Article
- Competing value signals impair reward-learning via dopaminergic mechanisms and increase exploration.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Recurrent Neural Network Exploration Strategies During Reinforcement Learning Depend on Network Capacity.Computational brain & behavior · 2026Article
- Article
- Learning reweights the decision dynamics of cortico-basal ganglia-thalamic pathways from deliberation to commitment.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Default mode network activity is related to efficiency in a combined motion error and gambling task.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Cortical Microstructural Variations Correlate With Individual Differences in Gamified Exploration-Exploitation Behaviours.Computational psychiatry (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2026Article
- No effect of preliminarily simulated cathodal HD-tDCS on the frontopolar cortex in the exploration-exploitation task.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Impaired Adaptive Learning in Chronic Pain Contributes to Apathy.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Ventral striatal astrocytes contribute to reinforcement learning.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Two Distinct Attentional Priorities Guide Exploratory and Exploitative Gaze in Parallel.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Distinct Computational Mechanisms of Uncertainty Processing Explain Opposing Exploratory Behaviors in Anxiety and Apathy.Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging · 2025Article
- Sophisticated Learning: A novel algorithm for active learning during model-based planning.ArXiv · 2025Article
- Article
- Beyond reward learning deficits: Exploration-exploitation instability reveals computational heterogeneity in value-based decision making in early psychosis.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Adaptive Reinforcement Learning is causally supported by Anterior Cingulate Cortex and Striatum.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Involvement of dopamine in regulating exploration during decision-making has long been hypothesized, but direct causal evidence in humans is still lacking. Here, we use a combination of computational modeling, pharmacological intervention and functional magnetic resonance imaging to address this issue. Thirty-one healthy male participants performed a restless four-armed bandit task in a within-subjects design under three drug conditions: 150 mg of the dopamine precursor L-dopa, 2 mg of the D2 receptor antagonist haloperidol, and placebo. Choices were best explained by an extension of an established Bayesian learning model accounting for perseveration, directed exploration and random exploration. Modeling revealed attenuated directed exploration under L-dopa, while neural signatures of exploration, exploitation and prediction error were unaffected. Instead, L-dopa attenuated neural representations of overall uncertainty in insula and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex. Our results highlight the computational role of these regions in exploration and suggest that dopamine modulates how this circuit tracks accumulating uncertainty during decision-making.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.