June 24, 2019
13:30 ~
CiNet　1F　Conference Room

“How does melatonin contribute to emotion regulation”

Misa Kurihara
Research assistant at Riken

Host: Masahiko Haruno (PI)

Abstract:
Emotion dysregulation is often associated with antisocial behaivours, and regulating emotions is important for optimal decision making and for social functioning. However, it has been unclear why humans cannot regulate emotions in social interactions. Sleep has been considered to play a key role in emotion regulation, but little is known about the relationship between melatonin, a sleep hormone, and emotion regulation.
To understand the neuroendocrine process of emotion regulation, we administered melatonin or placebo to healthy participants, and we investigated how decision-making would change after melatonin administration. As we predicted, melatonin increased the selection of rejection in Ultimatum Game compared with placebo controls, but we could not find a significant increase in sleepiness and emotional reactivity from the self-reports after melatonin administration. Combined with our second study, it is expected to see the process why humans failed to do rational decision making after melatonin administration.