# Dopamine's Role in Impulse Control and Reward Learning in Humans

> **NIH NIH F30** · WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES · 2024 · $29,647

## Abstract

Project Summary
The DSM-V categorized gambling disorder as the first behavioral addiction. The World Health Organization
(WHO) identified problem gambling as a necessary area for further research, with a burden of harm surpassing
substance use disorder and diabetes. Impulsivity is an important trait found on clinical assessment of gambling
disorder, and gambling disorder can be induced by dopamine replacement medications in a clinical syndrome
termed impulse control disorder (ICD). Dopamine agonist therapy is more responsible than other dopamine
replacement options, with patients on dopamine agonists experiencing roughly three times greater odds of
developing ICD. Neuroimaging studies have pinpointed the striatum as a culprit brain region for dopamine
abnormalities, with recent technologic advances in human electrochemistry providing the temporal specificity
necessary to correlate sub-second dopamine fluctuations to differences in reward learning. The NIMH RDoC
construct ‘Reward Learning’ and its subconstructs, ‘Reward Prediction Error’ and ‘Probabilistic and
Reinforcement Learning’ provide a framework to investigate temporal differences in dopamine fluctuations
corresponding to differences in decision-making in ICD. Based on preliminary data showing dopaminergic
signaling is altered in ICD corresponding to impulsivity, this proposal will investigate the following specific aims:
(1) Quantify patients’ threshold for risk-taking and the behavioral influence of RPEs in patients with a history of
ICD both on and off dopaminergic medications. (2) Measure sub-second dopamine fluctuations in the striatum
during decision-making under risk. Methods will employ human reward learning tasks and simultaneous human
electrochemistry. Training will take place at the Wake Forest School of Medicine in the Neuroscience and the
Medical programs as a part of the MD/PhD program. The applicant will receive training in the human
electrochemistry and behavioral science methods necessary to accomplish the proposed aims. The applicant
also places an emphasis on analytical training in R programming. Mentorship includes a multidisciplinary team
with individuals in the neurosurgery and neuroscience departments. This team will provide the applicant with
feedback regarding project implementation, data collection and analysis, and manuscript preparation. The
proposed aims have the potential to provide new therapeutic targets for the treatment of mental health
disorders that involve reward learning.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10781908
- **Project number:** 5F30DA053176-04
- **Recipient organization:** WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES
- **Principal Investigator:** Brittany Liebenow
- **Activity code:** F30 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $29,647
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2021-03-01 → 2024-05-20

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10781908

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10781908, Dopamine's Role in Impulse Control and Reward Learning in Humans (5F30DA053176-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10781908. Licensed CC0.

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