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Converging evidences from animal and human studies suggest that addiction is associated with dopaminergic dysfunction in brain reward circuits. So far, it is unclear what aspects of addictive behaviors are related to a dopaminergic dysfunction.

We hypothesize that a decrease in dopaminergic activity impairs emotion-based decision-making. To demonstrate this hypothesis, we investigated the effects of a decrease in dopaminergic activity on the performance of an emotion-based decision-making task, the Iowa gambling task (IGT), in 11 healthy human subjects.

We used a double-blind, placebo-controlled, within-subject design to examine the effect of a mixture containing the branched-chain amino acids (BCAA) valine, isoleucine and leucine on prolactin, IGT performance …