Cited by 87Visual perception and processing mechanismsNeural and Behavioral Psychology StudiesNeurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
Noradrenaline blockade specifically enhances metacognitive performance
Open accessHauser, Tobias U, Allen, Micah, Purg, Nina, Moutoussis, Michael, Rees, Geraint, Dolan, Raymond J·2017·eLife
DOI 10.7554/elife.24901PMC PMC5425252
Abstract
Impairments in metacognition, the ability to accurately report one’s performance, are common in patients with psychiatric disorders, where a putative neuromodulatory dysregulation provides the rationale for pharmacological interventions. Previously, we have shown how unexpected arousal modulates metacognition (Allen et al., 2016). Here, we report a double-blind, placebo-controlled, study that examined specific effects of noradrenaline and dopamine on both metacognition and perceptual decision making. Signal theoretic analysis of a global motion discrimination task with adaptive performance staircasing revealed that noradrenergic blockade (40 mg propranolol) significantly increased metacognitive performance (type-II area under the curve, AUROC2), but had no impact on perceptual decision making performance. Blockade of dopamine D2/3 receptors (400 mg amisulpride) had no effect on either metacognition or perceptual decision making. Our study is the first to show a pharmacological enhancement of metacognitive performance, in the absence of any effect on perceptual decision making. This enhancement points to a regulatory role for noradrenergic neurotransmission in perceptual metacognition.
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Metacognitive efficiency may be modulated in response to meditation, drugs, neurofeedback, brain stimulation, and training.
“Previous work has suggested that metacognitive efficiency may be modulated in response to meditation (Baird et al. 2014), drugs (Hauser et al. 2017), neurofeedback (Cortese et al. 2016), brain stimulation (Shekhar & Rahnev 2018), and training (Carpenter et al. 2019).”
From Metacognition and Confidence: A Review and Synthesis (2024) · cites this paper as Hauser et al. 2017
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- Authors
- Hauser, T. U., Allen, M., Purg, N., Moutoussis, M., Rees, G., & Dolan, R. J.
- Affiliations
- Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Hauser, Tobias U
- Venue
- eLife
- Publisher
- eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd
- Published
- 2017-05-10
- Volume
- 6
- ISSN
- 2050-084X (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC5425252
- OpenAlex
- W2612707574
- Cited by
- 87
- References
- 73
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 11 · 2020: 15 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 11 · 2017: 4
- FWCI
- 5.96
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- eLife (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Max Planck Digital Library (submittedVersion)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Wellcome (095844/Z/11/Z, 100227, 091593/Z/10/Z, 098362/Z/12/Z)
- UCLH Biomedical Research Council
- Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
- Keywords
- metacognition, norepinephrine, propranolol, amisulpride, perceptual decision making, signal detection theory, neuromodulation, arousal
- MeSH terms
- Metacognition, Adrenergic alpha-Agonists, Adult, Decision Making, Double-Blind Method, Female, Humans, Male, Norepinephrine, Placebos, Psychomotor Performance, Young Adult
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