Methylphenidate undermines or enhances divergent creativity depending on baseline dopamine synthesis capacity.

Autor: Sayalı C; The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA. zsayali1@jh.edu., van den Bosch R; Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands., Määttä JI; Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden., Hofmans L; Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands., Papadopetraki D; Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.; Department of Psychiatry, Radboud University Medical Centre, Nijmegen, The Netherlands., Booij J; Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, Amsterdam University Medical Centers, Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.; Department of Medical Imaging, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, The Netherlands., Verkes RJ; Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.; Department of Psychiatry, Radboud University Medical Centre, Nijmegen, The Netherlands., Baas M; Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands., Cools R; Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.; Department of Psychiatry, Radboud University Medical Centre, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology [Neuropsychopharmacology] 2023 Dec; Vol. 48 (13), pp. 1849-1858. Date of Electronic Publication: 2023 Jun 03.
DOI: 10.1038/s41386-023-01615-2
Abstrakt: Catecholamine-enhancing psychostimulants, such as methylphenidate have long been argued to undermine creative thinking. However, prior evidence for this is weak or contradictory, stemming from studies with small sample sizes that do not consider the well-established large variability in psychostimulant effects across different individuals and task demands. We aimed to definitively establish the link between psychostimulants and creative thinking by measuring effects of methylphenidate in 90 healthy participants on distinct creative tasks that measure convergent and divergent thinking, as a function of individuals' baseline dopamine synthesis capacity, indexed with 18 F-FDOPA PET imaging. In a double-blind, within-subject design, participants were administered methylphenidate, placebo or selective D2 receptor antagonist sulpiride. The results showed that striatal dopamine synthesis capacity and/or methylphenidate administration did not affect divergent and convergent thinking. However, exploratory analysis demonstrated a baseline dopamine-dependent effect of methylphenidate on a measure of response divergence, a creativity measure that measures response variability. Response divergence was reduced by methylphenidate in participants with low dopamine synthesis capacity but enhanced in those with high dopamine synthesis capacity. No evidence of any effect of sulpiride was found. These results show that methylphenidate can undermine certain forms of divergent creativity but only in individuals with low baseline dopamine levels.
(© 2023. American College of Neuropsychopharmacology.)
Databáze: MEDLINE