The role of ventromedial prefrontal cortex in reward valuation and future thinking during intertemporal choice.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Ciaramelli E
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8331177 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Episodic future thinking depends on a core network of regions that involves, in addition to the medial temporal lobes (MTL), the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). Neuroimaging studies suggest that vmPFC is particularly involved when future thinking requires consideration of self-relevant information, but lesion evidence for a special role of vmPFC in constructing self-relevant scenarios is limited. To clarify the involvement of vmPFC in future thinking, eight patients with vmPFC lesions were asked to imagine future events pertaining to the self or to another person, and their performance was contrasted with that of eight patients with MTL lesions. Patients with vmPFC lesions were no more detailed in their description of future events pertaining to the self than of events pertaining to another person. In contrast, like controls, patients with MTL lesions showed a self-benefit, despite impoverished performance overall. These findings accord with evidence from neuroimaging studies and elucidate the distinct contributions of vmPFC and MTL to future thinking.
| S-EPMC6513722 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Recent theories suggest that reward-based choice reflects competition between value signals in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). We tested this idea by recording vmPFC neurons while macaques performed a gambling task with asynchronous offer presentation. We found that neuronal activity shows four patterns consistent with selection via mutual inhibition: (1) correlated tuning for probability and reward size, suggesting that vmPFC carries an integrated value signal; (2) anti-correlated tuning curves for the two options, suggesting mutual inhibition; (3) neurons rapidly come to signal the value of the chosen offer, suggesting the circuit serves to produce a choice; and (4) after regressing out the effects of option values, firing rates still could predict choice-a choice probability signal. In addition, neurons signaled gamble outcomes, suggesting that vmPFC contributes to both monitoring and choice processes. These data suggest a possible mechanism for reward-based choice and endorse the centrality of vmPFC in that process.
| S-EPMC4086796 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Imagining future events while performing an intertemporal choice task can attenuate the devaluation of future rewards. Here, we investigated whether this effect and its neural basis depend on the degree of personal prior experience associated with the simulated future scenarios. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was combined with a modified intertemporal choice task in which the delayed options were either purely monetary, or linked with a social event. Subject-specific events differed regarding familiarity, that is, meeting a close, familiar person or a celebrity in a café. In line with recent hypotheses on episodic construction, the simulation of future familiar and unfamiliar events equally attenuated delay discounting behavior in comparison with the control condition and both were imagined with similar richness. Imaging data, however, indicate that these results rely on differential neural activation patterns. The hippocampus was particularly involved in the simulation of unfamiliar future scenarios, probably reflecting enhanced construction processes when personal experience with similar past events is lacking. Consequently, functional coupling of the hippocampus with neural valuation signals in the anterior cingulate cortex predicted the subjective value only of rewards offered in the unfamiliar context. In contrast, valuation of rewards in a familiar context was predicted by activation in key nodes of emotional and autobiographical memory retrieval and dynamically modulated by frontal-striatal connectivity. The present data emphasize that the mechanisms underlying neural valuation of prospective rewards largely depend on the pre-experience with the context in which they are offered.
| S-EPMC6869307 | biostudies-literature
Project description:IntroductionStudies suggest an involvement of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) in reward prediction and processing, with reward-based learning relying on neural activity in response to unpredicted rewards or non-rewards (reward prediction error, RPE). Here, we investigated the causal role of the vmPFC in reward prediction, processing, and RPE signaling by transiently modulating vmPFC excitability using transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS).MethodsParticipants received excitatory or inhibitory tDCS of the vmPFC before completing a gambling task, in which cues signaled varying reward probabilities and symbols provided feedback on monetary gain or loss. We collected self-reported and evaluative data on reward prediction and processing. In addition, cue-locked and feedback-locked neural activity via magnetoencephalography (MEG) and pupil diameter using eye-tracking were recorded.ResultsRegarding reward prediction (cue-locked analysis), vmPFC excitation (versus inhibition) resulted in increased prefrontal activation preceding loss predictions, increased pupil dilations, and tentatively more optimistic reward predictions. Regarding reward processing (feedback-locked analysis), vmPFC excitation (versus inhibition) resulted in increased pleasantness, increased vmPFC activation, especially for unpredicted gains (i.e., gain RPEs), decreased perseveration in choice behavior after negative feedback, and increased pupil dilations.DiscussionOur results support the pivotal role of the vmPFC in reward prediction and processing. Furthermore, they suggest that transient vmPFC excitation via tDCS induces a positive bias into the reward system that leads to enhanced anticipation and appraisal of positive outcomes and improves reward-based learning, as indicated by greater behavioral flexibility after losses and unpredicted outcomes, which can be seen as an improved reaction to the received feedback.
| S-EPMC10465130 | biostudies-literature
Project description:The perceived effort level of an action shapes everyday decisions. Despite the importance of these perceptions for decision-making, the behavioral and neural representations of the subjective cost of effort are not well understood. While a number of studies have implicated anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) in decisions about effort/reward trade-offs, none have experimentally isolated effort valuation from reward and choice difficulty, a function that is commonly ascribed to this region. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to monitor brain activity while human participants engaged in uncertain choices for prospective physical effort. Our task was designed to examine effort-based decision-making in the absence of reward and separated from choice difficulty-allowing us to investigate the brain's role in effort valuation, independent of these other factors. Participants exhibited subjectivity in their decision-making, displaying increased sensitivity to changes in subjective effort as objective effort levels increased. Analysis of blood-oxygenation-level dependent activity revealed that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) encoded the subjective valuation of prospective effort, and ACC activity was best described by choice difficulty. These results provide insight into the processes responsible for decision-making regarding effort, partly dissociating the roles of vmPFC and ACC in prospective valuation of effort and choice difficulty.
| S-EPMC6735256 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Alongside impulsive suicide attempts, clinicians encounter highly premeditated suicidal acts, particularly in older adults. We have previously found that in contrast to the more impulsive suicide attempters' inability to delay gratification, serious and highly planned suicide attempts were associated with greater willingness to wait for larger rewards. This study examined neural underpinnings of intertemporal preference in suicide attempters. We expected that impulsivity and suicide attempts, particularly poorly planned ones, would predict altered paralimbic subjective value representations. We also examined lateral prefrontal and paralimbic correlates of premeditation in suicidal behavior.A total of 48 participants aged 46-90 years underwent extensive clinical and cognitive characterization and completed the delay discounting task in the scanner: 26 individuals with major depression (13 with and 13 without history of suicide attempts) and 22 healthy controls.More impulsive individuals displayed greater activation in the precuneus/posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) to value difference favoring the delayed option. Suicide attempts, particularly better-planned ones, were associated with deactivation of the lateral prefrontal cortex (lPFC) in response to value difference favoring the immediate option. Findings were robust to medication exposure, depression severity and possible brain damage from suicide attempts, among other confounders. Finally, in suicide attempters longer reward delays were associated with diminished parahippocampal responses.Impulsivity was associated with an altered paralimbic (precuneus/PCC) encoding of value difference during intertemporal choice. By contrast, better-planned suicidal acts were associated with altered lPFC representations of value difference. The study provides preliminary evidence of impaired decision processes in both impulsive and premeditated suicidal behavior.
| S-EPMC4797639 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Although the future often seems intangible, we can make it more concrete by imagining prospective events. Here, using functional MRI, we demonstrate a mechanism by which the ventromedial prefrontal cortex supports such episodic simulations, and thereby contributes to affective foresight: This region supports processes that (i) integrate knowledge related to the elements that constitute an episode and (ii) represent the episode's emergent affective quality. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex achieves such integration via interactions with distributed cortical regions that process the individual elements. Its activation then signals the affective quality of the ensuing episode, which goes beyond the combined affective quality of its constituting elements. The integrative process further augments long-term retention of the episode, making it available at later time points. This mechanism thus renders the future tangible, providing a basis for farsighted behavior.
| S-EPMC4246308 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Although theoretical discourse and experimental studies on the self- and reward-biases have a long tradition, currently we have only a limited understanding of how the biases are represented in the brain and, more importantly, how they relate to each other. We used multi-voxel pattern analysis to test for common representations of self and reward in perceptual matching in healthy human subjects. Voxels across an anterior-posterior axis in ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) distinguished (i) self-others and (ii) high-low reward, but cross-generalization between these dimensions decreased from anterior to posterior vmPFC. The vmPFC is characterized by a shift from a common currency for value to independent, distributed representations of self and reward across an anterior-posterior axis. This shift reflected changes in functional connectivity between the posterior part of the vmPFC and the frontal pole when processing self-associated stimuli, and the middle frontal gyrus when processing stimuli associated with high reward. The changes in functional connectivity were correlated with behavioral biases, respectively, to the self and reward. The distinct representations of self and reward in the posterior vmPFC are associated with self- and reward-biases in behavior.
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Project description:Saving behavior usually requires individuals to perform several consecutive choices before collecting the final reward. The overt behavior is preceded by an intention to perform an appropriate choice sequence. We studied saving sequences for which each participant rated the intention numerically as willingness to save. Each sequence resulted in a specific reward amount and thus had a particular value for the participant, which we assessed with a Becker-DeGroot-Marschak auction-like mechanism. Using functional MRI, we found that blood-oxygen-level-dependent signals in human ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) correlated with the participant's stated intention before each choice sequence. An adjacent vmPFC region showed graded activation that reflected the value of the sequence. These results demonstrate an involvement of vmPFC in intentional processes preceding sequential economic choices.
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Project description:Reward and emotion are tightly intertwined, so there is a growing interest in mapping their interactions. However, our knowledge of these interactions in the human brain, especially during the consummatory phase of reward is limited. To address this critical gap, we conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging study to investigate the effects of negative emotion on reward outcome processing. We employed a novel design where emotional valence (negative or neutral) indicated the type of outcome (reward or no-reward) in a choice task. We focused our functional magnetic resonance imaging analysis on the ventro-medial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), ventral striatum and amygdala, which were frequently implicated in reward outcome processing. In these regions of interest, we performed multi-voxel pattern analysis to specifically probe how negative emotion modulates reward outcome processing. In vmPFC, using decoding analysis, we found evidence consistent with the reduced discriminability of multi-variate activity patterns of reward vs no-reward outcomes when signaled by a negative relative to a neutral image, suggesting an emotional modulation of reward processing along the plausible common value/valence dimension. These findings advance our limited understanding of the basic brain mechanisms underlying the influence of negative emotion on consummatory reward processing, with potential implications for mental disorders, particularly anxiety and depression.
| S-EPMC10661064 | biostudies-literature