TY - JOUR
T1 - Dorsal anterior cingulate cortex encodes the integrated incentive motivational value of cognitive task performance
AU - Yee, Debbie M.
AU - Crawford, Jennifer L.
AU - Lamichhane, Bidhan
AU - Braver, Todd S.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by National Institutes of Health Grants R21-AG058206 and R21-AG067295 to T.S.B., and Subaward R24-AG054355 to D.M.Y.; and McDonnell Center for Systems Neuroscience to T.S.B. and D.M.Y. D.M.Y. and J.L.C. were supported by National Institutes of Health Grant T32-AG000030. D.M.Y. was additionally supported by National Institutes of Health Grants F31-DA042574 and T32-NS073547. We thank Carolyn Dean Wolf and Katherine Shapiro for assistance with data collection and technical support; and Amitai Shenhav, Katherine Conen, as well as the Cognitive Control and Psychopathology (CCP) and Shenhav laboratories for helpful input and discussions during manuscript preparation.
Funding Information:
This work was supported by National Institutes of Health Grants R21-AG058206 and R21-AG067295 to T.S.B., and Subaward R24-AG054355 to D.M.Y.; and McDonnell Center for Systems Neuroscience to T.S.B. and D.M.Y. D.M.Y. and J.L.C. were supported by National Institutes of Health Grant T32-AG000030. D.M.Y. was additionally supported by National Institutes of Health Grants F31-DA042574 and T32-NS073547. We thank Carolyn Dean Wolf and Katherine Shapiro for assistance with data collection and technical support; and Amitai Shenhav, Katherine Conen, as well as the Cognitive Control and Psychopathology (CCP) and Shenhav laboratories for helpful input and discussions during manuscript preparation. The authors declare no competing financial interests. Correspondence should be addressed to Debbie M. Yee at [email protected]. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2550-20.2021 Copyright © 2021 the authors
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Society for Neuroscience. All rights reserved.
PY - 2021/4/21
Y1 - 2021/4/21
N2 - Humans can seamlessly combine value signals from diverse motivational incentives, yet it is not well understood how these signals are "bundled" in the brain to modulate cognitive control. The dorsal ACC (dACC) is theorized to integrate motivational value dimensions in the service of goal-directed action, although this hypothesis has yet to receive rigorous confirmation. In the present study, we examined the role of human dACC in motivational incentive integration. Healthy young adult men and women were scanned with fMRI while engaged in an experimental paradigm that quantifies the combined effects of liquid (e.g., juice, neutral, saltwater) and monetary incentives on cognitive task performance. Monetary incentives modulated trial-by-trial dACC activation, whereas block-related effects of liquid incentives on dACC activity were observed. When bundled together, incentive-related dACC modulation predicted fluctuations in both cognitive performance and self-report motivation ratings. Statistical mediation analyses suggest that dACC encoded the incentives in terms of their integrated subjective motivational value, and that this value signal was most proximally associated with task performance. Finally, we confirmed that these incentive integration effects were selectively present in dACC. Together, the results support an account in which dACC integrates motivational signals to compute the expected value of goal-directed cognitive control.
AB - Humans can seamlessly combine value signals from diverse motivational incentives, yet it is not well understood how these signals are "bundled" in the brain to modulate cognitive control. The dorsal ACC (dACC) is theorized to integrate motivational value dimensions in the service of goal-directed action, although this hypothesis has yet to receive rigorous confirmation. In the present study, we examined the role of human dACC in motivational incentive integration. Healthy young adult men and women were scanned with fMRI while engaged in an experimental paradigm that quantifies the combined effects of liquid (e.g., juice, neutral, saltwater) and monetary incentives on cognitive task performance. Monetary incentives modulated trial-by-trial dACC activation, whereas block-related effects of liquid incentives on dACC activity were observed. When bundled together, incentive-related dACC modulation predicted fluctuations in both cognitive performance and self-report motivation ratings. Statistical mediation analyses suggest that dACC encoded the incentives in terms of their integrated subjective motivational value, and that this value signal was most proximally associated with task performance. Finally, we confirmed that these incentive integration effects were selectively present in dACC. Together, the results support an account in which dACC integrates motivational signals to compute the expected value of goal-directed cognitive control.
KW - Cognitive control
KW - DACC
KW - Incentive integration
KW - Motivation
KW - Reward
KW - Value
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85105046905&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2550-20.2021
DO - 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2550-20.2021
M3 - Article
C2 - 33707296
AN - SCOPUS:85105046905
SN - 0270-6474
VL - 41
SP - 3707
EP - 3720
JO - Journal of Neuroscience
JF - Journal of Neuroscience
IS - 16
ER -