The role of dopamine, reward learning and prefrontal activity in expectation-induced mood enhancement (A07)

• Subject Area: Personality Psychology, Clinical and Medical Psychology, Methodology
• Term: from 2020 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 422744262

A07 will elucidate the neural, neurochemical, and neurocomputational pathways underlying expectation effects on negative mood and anhedonia. Using EEG in combination with a pharmacological challenge to the dopaminergic system and computational modeling of reward learning, this project will investigate how dopamine-related reward processing contributes to expectation effects on negative affect and depression-like symptoms. Results will contribute to the understanding of prefrontal and orbitofrontal activity for the generation of expectation effects in the field of mood, depressive symptoms, and pain.

• DFG Programme: CRC/Transregios
• Subproject of: TRR 289: Treatment Expectation - The impact of expectation on health outcome
• Applicant Institution: Universität Duisburg-Essen
• Project Heads: Professor Dominik M. Endres, Ph.D.; Professor Dr. Erik M. Müller