Genesis and Maintenance of Attentional Biases: The Role of the Locus Coeruleus-Noradrenaline System

Figure 2

Overview over how (appetitive) noradrenaline (NA) modulated associative learning may give rise to attentional biases. In a simple Pavlovian conditioning paradigm, NA may influence associative learning processes leading to attentional bias for conditioned stimuli (CS) (for both appetitive and aversive unconditioned stimuli). In instrumental learning, initial learning of action-outcome relation is affected by NA giving rise to attentional biases for action-triggering stimuli. In a second step, attentional biases and noradrenergic processes may bias behaviour towards the habitual by strengthening stimulus-response over action-outcome relations. Finally, Pavlovian CS can influence instrumental responding, a process that may be influenced by both NA and attentional biases to the CS. Enhanced associative learning can manifest in excessive attentional biases characteristic of psychopathology.