: Much of our knowledge of how reward information is processed in the brain comes from a rich animal literature. Recently, the advancement of neuroimaging techniques has allowed researchers to ...extend such investigations to the human brain. A common finding across species and methodologies is the involvement of the striatum, the input structure of the basal ganglia, in a circuit responsible for mediating goal‐directed behavior. Central to this idea is the role of the striatum in the processing of affective stimuli, such as rewards and punishments. The goal of this article is to probe the human reward circuit, specifically the striatum and its subdivisions, with an emphasis on how the affective properties of outcomes or feedback influence the underlying neural activity and subsequent decision making. Discussion will first focus on anatomical and functional considerations regarding the striatum that have emerged from animal models. The rest of the article will center on how human neuroimaging studies map to findings from the animal literature, and how more recently, this research can be extended into the social and economic domains.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
Reminders of happy memories can bring back pleasant feelings tied to the original experience, suggesting an intrinsic value in reminiscing about the positive past. However, the neural circuitry ...underlying the rewarding aspects of autobiographical memory is poorly understood. Using fMRI, we observed enhanced activity during the recall of positive relative to neutral autobiographical memories in corticostriatal circuits that also responded to monetary reward. Enhanced activity in the striatum and medial prefrontal cortex was associated with increases in positive emotion during recall, and striatal engagement further correlated with individual measures of resiliency. Striatal response to the recall of positive memories was greater in individuals whose mood improved after the task. Notably, participants were willing to sacrifice a more tangible reward, money, in order to reminisce about positive past experiences. Our findings suggest that recalling positive autobiographical memories is intrinsically valuable, which may be adaptive for regulating positive emotion and promoting better well-being.
•The act of recalling positive life events enhances emotion and has tangible value•Corticostriatal fMRI signals index emotion evoked by recalling positive life events•Striatal activity relates to positive mood enhancing effects of reminiscing•Striatal responses to positive memories may relate to individual resilience
Speer et al. demonstrate that positive autobiographical memories can be intrinsically valuable to an individual. Recalling the positive past allows us to rekindle positive emotions, recruits reward-related neural circuitry, and leads one to forgo monetary rewards for such an experience.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
The Inherent Reward of Choice Leotti, Lauren A.; Delgado, Mauricio R.
Psychological science,
10/2011, Volume:
22, Issue:
10
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Research suggests that the exercise of control is desirable and adaptive, but the precise mechanisms underlying the affective value of control are not well understood. The study reported here ...characterized the affective experience of personal control by examining the neural substrates recruited when individuals anticipate the opportunity to make a choice— in other words, when they anticipate the means for exercising control. We used an experimental paradigm that probed the value of having a choice. Participants reported liking cues that predicted a future opportunity to make a choice more than cues that predicted no choice. The anticipation of choice itself was associated with increased activity in corticostriatal regions, particularly the ventral striatum, involved in affective and motivational processes. This study is the first direct examination of the affective value of having the opportunity to choose. These findings have important implications for understanding the role of perception of control, and choice itself, in self-regulatory processes.
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Learned fear is a process allowing quick detection of associations between cues in the environment and prediction of imminent threat. Adaptive function in a changing environment, however, requires ...organisms to quickly update this learning and have the ability to hinder fear responses when predictions are no longer correct. Here we focus on three strategies that can modify conditioned fear, namely extinction, reversal and regulation of fear, and review their underlying neural mechanisms. By directly comparing neuroimaging data from three separate studies that employ each strategy, we highlight overlapping brain structures that comprise a general circuitry in the human brain. This circuitry potentially enables the flexible control of fear, regardless of the particular task demands.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
People's decisions are often susceptible to various demands exerted by the environment, leading to stressful conditions. Although a goal for researchers is to elucidate stress-coping mechanisms to ...facilitate decision making processes, it is important to first understand the interaction between the state created by a stressful environment and how decisions are performed in such environments. The objective of this experiment was to probe the impact of exposure to acute stress on financial decision making and examine the particular influence of stress on decisions with a positive or negative valence. Participants' choices exhibited a stronger reflection effect when participants were under stress than when they were in the nostress control phase. This suggests that stress modulates risk taking, potentially exacerbating behavioral bias in subsequent decision making. Consistent with dual-process approaches, decision makers fall back on automatized reactions to risk under the influence of disruptive stress.
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•Acute stress can impair valuation of reward information critical to decision making.•Acute stress influences a shift from goal-directed to habit-based decision making.•Effects of acute stress on ...risk-taking are mixed but promising for future studies.
A wide range of stressful experiences can influence human decision making in complex ways beyond the simple predictions of a fight-or-flight model. Recent advances may provide insight into this complicated interaction, potentially in directions that could result in translational applications. Early research suggests that stress exposure influences basic neural circuits involved in reward processing and learning, while also biasing decisions toward habit and modulating our propensity to engage in risk-taking. That said, a substantial array of theoretical and methodological considerations in research on the topic challenge strong cross study comparisons necessary for the field to move forward. In this review we examine the multifaceted stress construct in the context of human decision making, emphasizing stress’ effect on valuation, learning, and risk-taking.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
Recalling happy memories elicits positive feelings and enhances one's wellbeing, suggesting a potential adaptive function in using this strategy for coping with stress. In two studies, we explored ...whether recalling autobiographical memories that have a positive content - i.e., remembering the good times - can dampen the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis stress response. Participants underwent an acute stressor or control task followed by autobiographical memory recollection (of only positive or neutral valence). Across both studies, recalling positive, but not neutral, memories resulted in a dampened cortisol rise and reduced negative affect. Further, individuals with greater self-reported resiliency showed enhanced mood, despite stress exposure. During positive reminiscence, we observed engagement of corticostriatal circuits previously implicated in reward-processing and emotion regulation, and stronger connectivity between ventrolateral and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex as a function of positivity. These findings highlight the restorative and protective function of self-generated positive emotions via memory recall in the face of stress.
Finding positive meaning in past negative memories is associated with enhanced mental health. Yet it remains unclear whether it leads to updates in the memory representation itself. Since memory can ...be labile after retrieval, this leaves the potential for modification whenever its reactivated. Across four experiments, we show that positively reinterpreting negative memories adaptively updates them, leading to the re-emergence of positivity at future retrieval. Focusing on the positive aspects after negative recall leads to enhanced positive emotion and changes in memory content during recollection one week later, remaining even after two months. Consistent with a reactivation-induced reconsolidation account, memory updating occurs only after a reminder and twenty four hours, but not a one hour delay. Multi-session fMRI showed adaptive updates are reflected in greater hippocampal and ventral striatal pattern dissimilarity across retrievals. This research highlights the mechanisms by which updating of maladaptive memories occurs through a positive emotion-focused strategy.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a noninvasive tool used to probe cognitive and affective processes. Although fMRI provides indirect measures of neural activity, the advent of fMRI has ...allowed for1) the corroboration of significant animal findings in the human brain, and2) the expansion of models to include more common human attributes that inform behavior. In this review, we briefly consider the neural basis of the blood oxygenation level dependent signal to set up a discussion of how fMRI studies have applied it in examining cognitive models in humans and the promise of using fMRI to advance such models. Specifically, we illustrate the contribution that fMRI has made to the study of reward processing, focusing on the role of the striatum in encoding reward-related learning signals that drive anticipatory and consummatory behaviors. For instance, we discuss how fMRI can be used to link neural signals (e.g., striatal responses to rewards) to individual differences in behavior and traits. While this functional segregation approach has been constructive to our understanding of reward-related functions, many fMRI studies have also benefitted from a functional integration approach that takes into account how interconnected regions (e.g., corticostriatal circuits) contribute to reward processing. We contend that future work using fMRI will profit from using a multimodal approach, such as combining fMRI with noninvasive brain stimulation tools (e.g., transcranial electrical stimulation), that can identify causal mechanisms underlying reward processing. Consequently, advancements in implementing fMRI will promise new translational opportunities to inform our understanding of psychopathologies.
Although the involvement in the striatum in the refinement and control of motor movement has long been recognized, recent description of discrete frontal corticobasal ganglia networks in a range of ...species has focused attention on the role particularly of the dorsal striatum in executive functions. Current evidence suggests that the dorsal striatum contributes directly to decision-making, especially to action selection and initiation, through the integration of sensorimotor, cognitive, and motivational/emotional information within specific corticostriatal circuits involving discrete regions of striatum. We review key evidence from recent studies in rodent, nonhuman primate, and human subjects.
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