Evidence for this theory originates from studies which have shown that DA agonists that enhance dopaminergic activity strengthen positive affect (Beatty, 1995). Furthermore, there is ample evidence that DA selectively modulates cognitive control processes (Braver et al., 1999 and Reynolds et al., 2006). Interestingly, the antisaccade task has been shown to be modulated by dopamine levels in the brain. For instance, patients with schizophrenia have higher error rates and longer latencies than controls on antisaccade tasks (Fukushima et al., 1990 and Sereno and

Holzman, 1995), similarly to advanced Parkinson patients (Kitagawa, Fukushima, & Tashiro, 1994). Because these disorders have been linked to an imbalance in dopaminergic states in the brain, these abnormalities in the selleck monoclonal humanized antibody antisaccade task may be due to disturbances in dopaminergic neurotransmission. Although we did not measure dopamine levels directly in the current experiment1, we speculate that the observed modulations of positive affect on the antisaccade task might therefore be due to changes in dopaminergic levels in the brain. Higher levels of dopamine result in the enhanced ability to overcome dominant responses. Such fluctuations in DA levels might be expected to modulate activity particularly in those oculomotor circuits that are densely innervated by dopaminergic

projections. Results further showed that the effect of induced positive affect on oculomotor inhibition was restricted to the eye movements with short latencies (80–130 ms). It BIRB 796 molecular weight is known that these erroneous ‘express’ saccades reflect a different

and distinct phenomenon than erroneous saccades with a longer latency (>130 ms) (Klein and Fischer, 2005 and Klein et al., 2010). Therefore, it seems that the induced positive affect exclusively improves the oculomotor inhibition of reflex-like prosaccades. This finding might seem inconsistent with Morin Hydrate the idea that induced positive affect increases cognitive control, because it has been suggested that only errors with a regular latency are correlated with (‘higher’) cognitive measures, like executive function and working memory (Klein et al., 2010). Although speculative, it is interesting to consider the possible neural mechanisms underlying the effect of induced positive affect on the oculomotor inhibition of reflex-like prosaccades. When a saccade is required in the direction opposite to the visual hemifield in which a stimulus onset occurs, several distinct but interrelated oculomotor processes come into play: (1) active fixation of the oculomotor system, (2) intentional saccade initiation, and (3) selective suppression of saccades until the program of the appropriate eye movement has been fully developed.