Effects of Serotonin and Dopamine Depletion on Neural Prediction Computations during Social Learning

We recently found that individuals with high depression scores demonstrate impaired learning from social outcomes. Given that depression has been linked to altered serotonin (5-HT) and dopamine (DA) functioning, the current study aimed to elucidate the role of these neurotransmitters in social learning with the use of dietary precursor depletion. In a double-blind design, 70 healthy volunteers were randomly allocated to the 5-HT depletion (N=24), DA depletion (N = 24), or placebo (N = 22) group. Participants performed a social learning task during fMRI scanning, as part of which they learned associations between name cues and rewarding (happy faces) or aversive (fearful faces) social outcomes. Behaviourally, 5-HT depleted subjects demonstrated impaired social reward learning compared to placebo controls, with a marginal effect in the same direction in the DA depletion group. On the neural level, computational modelling-based fMRI analyses revealed that 5-HT depletion altered social reward prediction signals in the insula, temporal lobe, and prefrontal cortex. DA depletion affected social reward prediction encoding only in the prefrontal cortex. These results indicate that 5-HT depletion impairs learning from social rewards, on both the behavioural and the neural level, while DA depletion has a less extensive effect. Interestingly, the behavioural and neural responses observed after 5-HT depletion in the current study closely resemble our previous findings in individuals with high depression scores. It may thus be the case that decreased 5-HT levels contribute to social learning deficits in depression.