Journal article
The NMDA receptor partial agonist d-cycloserine does not enhance motor learning
- Abstract:
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Rationale: There has recently been increasing interest in pharmacological manipulations that could potentially enhance exposure-based cognitive-behavior therapy (CBT) for anxiety disorders. One such medication is the partial NMDA agonist d-cycloserine (DCS). It has been suggested that DCS enhances CBT by making learning faster. While animal studies have supported this view of the drug accelerating learning, evidence in human studies has been mixed. We therefore designed an experiment to measure the effects of DCS on human motor learning.
Methods: 54 healthy human volunteers were randomly assigned to a single dose of 250mg DCS versus placebo in a double-blind design. They then performed a motor sequence learning task.
Results: DCS did not increase the speed of motor learning or the overall amount learnt. However, we noted that participants on DCS tended to respond more carefully (shifting towards slower, but more correct responses).
Conclusion: The results suggest that DCS does not exert beneficial effects on psychological treatments via mechanisms involved in motor learning. Further studies are needed to clarify the influence on other cognitive mechanisms.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 190.1KB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1177/0269881116658988
Authors
- Publisher:
- SAGE Publications
- Journal:
- Journal of Psychopharmacology More from this journal
- Volume:
- 30
- Issue:
- 10
- Pages:
- 994-999
- Publication date:
- 2016-07-01
- Acceptance date:
- 2016-06-13
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1461-7285
- ISSN:
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0269-8811
- Pubs id:
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pubs:632370
- UUID:
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uuid:06ae0ec2-dd98-47cb-bafe-0b5f9497692e
- Local pid:
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pubs:632370
- Source identifiers:
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632370
- Deposit date:
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2016-07-07
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Gunthner et al
- Copyright date:
- 2016
- Notes:
- © The Author(s) 2016. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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