The role of the hippocampus in approach-avoidance conflict decision-making: Evidence from rodent and human studies

Anxiety is characterized by low confidence in daily decisions, coupled with high levels of phenomenological stress. Ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) plays an integral role in maladaptive anxious behaviors via decreased sensitivity to threatening vs. non-threatening stimuli (fear generalization). vmPFC is also a key node in approach-avoidance decision making requiring two-dimensional integration of rewards and costs. More recently, vmPFC has been implicated as a key cortical input to the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system. However, little is known about the role of this brain region in mediating rapid stress responses elicited by changes in confidence during decision making. We used an approach-avoidance task to examine the relationship between sympathetically mediated cardiac stress responses, vmPFC activity and choice behavior over long and short time-scales. To do this, we collected concurrent fMRI, EKG and impedance cardiography recordings of sympathetic drive while participants made approach-avoidance decisions about monetary rewards paired with painful electric shock stimuli. We observe first that increased sympathetic drive (shorter pre-ejection period) in states lasting minutes are associated with choices involving reduced decision ambivalence. Thus, on this slow time scale, sympathetic drive serves as a proxy for “mobilization” whereby participants are more likely to show consistent value-action mapping. In parallel, imaging analyses reveal that on shorter time scales (estimated with a trial-to-trial GLM), increased vmPFC activity, particularly during low-ambivalence decisions, is associated with decreased sympathetic state. Our findings support a role of sympathetic drive in resolving decision ambivalence across long time horizons and suggest a potential role of vmPFC in modulating this response on a moment-to-moment basis.

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Neural systems underlying approach and avoidance in anxiety disorders

Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience ◽

10.31887/dcns.2010.12.4/raupperle ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 12 (4) ◽

pp. 517-531 ◽

Cited By ~ 18

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Anxiety Disorders ◽

Orbitofrontal Cortex ◽

Neural Substrates ◽

Neural Systems ◽

Approach And Avoidance ◽

Cognition And Emotion ◽

Avoidance Behaviors ◽

Approach Avoidance

Approach-avoidance conflict is an important psychological concept that has been used extensively to better understand cognition and emotion. This review focuses on neural systems involved in approach, avoidance, and conflict decision making, and how these systems overlap with implicated neural substrates of anxiety disorders. In particular, the role of amygdala, insula, ventral striatal, and prefrontal regions are discussed with respect to approach and avoidance behaviors. Three specific hypotheses underlying the dysfunction in anxiety disorders are proposed, including: (i) over-representation of avoidance valuation related to limbic overactivation; (ii) under- or over-representation of approach valuation related to attenuated or exaggerated striatal activation respectively; and (iii) insufficient integration and arbitration of approach and avoidance valuations related to attenuated orbitofrontal cortex activation. These dysfunctions can be examined experimentally using versions of existing decision-making paradigms, but may also require new translational and innovative approaches to probe approach-avoidance conflict and related neural systems in anxiety disorders.

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Impact of total sleep deprivation and related mood changes on approach-avoidance decisions to threat-related facial displays

SLEEP ◽

10.1093/sleep/zsab186 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Julie Grèzes ◽

Mégane Erblang ◽

Emma Vilarem ◽

Michael Quiquempoix ◽

Pascal Van Beers ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Sleep Deprivation ◽

Sustained Attention ◽

Positive Mood ◽

Sleep Loss ◽

Total Sleep Deprivation ◽

Mood Changes ◽

Approach Avoidance ◽

The Impact

Abstract Study Objectives Total sleep deprivation is known to have significant detrimental effects on cognitive and socio-emotional functioning. Nonetheless, the mechanisms by which total sleep loss disturbs decision-making in social contexts are poorly understood. Here, we investigated the impact of total sleep deprivation on approach/avoidance decisions when faced with threatening individuals, as well as the potential moderating role of sleep-related mood changes. Methods Participants (n = 34) made spontaneous approach/avoidance decisions in the presence of task-irrelevant angry or fearful individuals, while rested or totally sleep deprived (27 hours of continuous wakefulness). Sleep-related changes in mood and sustained attention were assessed using the Positive and Negative Affective Scale and the psychomotor vigilance task, respectively. Results Rested participants avoided both fearful and angry individuals, with stronger avoidance for angry individuals, in line with previous results. On the contrary, totally sleep deprived participants favored neither approach nor avoidance of fearful individuals, while they still comparably avoided angry individuals. Drift-diffusion models showed that this effect was accounted for by the fact that total sleep deprivation reduced value-based evidence accumulation toward avoidance during decision making. Finally, the reduction of positive mood after total sleep deprivation positively correlated with the reduction of fearful display avoidance. Importantly, this correlation was not mediated by a sleep-related reduction in sustained attention. Conclusions All together, these findings support the underestimated role of positive mood-state alterations caused by total sleep loss on approach/avoidance decisions when facing ambiguous socio-emotional displays, such as fear.

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Approach-Avoidance Decisions Under Threat: The Role of Autonomic Psychophysiological States

Frontiers in Neuroscience ◽

10.3389/fnins.2021.621517 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 15 ◽

Author(s):

James J. A. Livermore ◽

Felix H. Klaassen ◽

Bob Bramson ◽

Anneloes M. Hulsman ◽

Sjoerd W. Meijer ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

The Body ◽

Parasympathetic Activity ◽

Decision Making Process ◽

Theoretical Treatment ◽

Autonomic Changes ◽

Action Preparation ◽

Approach Avoidance ◽

Bodily States

Acutely challenging or threatening situations frequently require approach-avoidance decisions. Acute threat triggers fast autonomic changes that prepare the body to freeze, fight or flee. However, such autonomic changes may also influence subsequent instrumental approach-avoidance decisions. Since defensive bodily states are often not considered in value-based decision-making models, it remains unclear how they influence the decision-making process. Here, we aim to bridge this gap by discussing the existing literature on the potential role of threat-induced bodily states on decision making and provide a new neurocomputational framework explaining how these effects can facilitate or bias approach-avoid decisions under threat. Theoretical accounts have stated that threat-induced parasympathetic activity is involved in information gathering and decision making. Parasympathetic dominance over sympathetic activity is particularly seen during threat-anticipatory freezing, an evolutionarily conserved response to threat demonstrated across species and characterized by immobility and bradycardia. Although this state of freezing has been linked to altered information processing and action preparation, a full theoretical treatment of the interactions with value-based decision making has not yet been achieved. Our neural framework, which we term the Threat State/Value Integration (TSI) Model, will illustrate how threat-induced bodily states may impact valuation of competing incentives at three stages of the decision-making process, namely at threat evaluation, integration of rewards and threats, and action initiation. Additionally, because altered parasympathetic activity and decision biases have been shown in anxious populations, we will end with discussing how biases in this system can lead to characteristic patterns of avoidance seen in anxiety-related disorders, motivating future pre-clinical and clinical research.

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Motivated Cognition: Effects of Reward, Emotion, and Other Motivational Factors Across a Variety of Cognitive Domains

Collabra Psychology ◽

10.1525/collabra.111 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 3 (1) ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Christopher R. Madan

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Cognitive Processing ◽

Semantic Processing ◽

Emotional Memory ◽

Motivated Cognition ◽

Cognitive Domains ◽

Avoidance Motivation ◽

Growing Body ◽

Approach Avoidance

A growing body of literature has demonstrated that motivation influences cognitive processing. The breadth of these effects is extensive and span influences of reward, emotion, and other motivational processes across all cognitive domains. As examples, this scope includes studies of emotional memory, value-based attentional capture, emotion effects on semantic processing, reward-related biases in decision making, and the role of approach/avoidance motivation on cognitive scope. Additionally, other less common forms of motivation–cognition interactions, such as self-referential and motoric processing can also be considered instances of motivated cognition. Here I outline some of the evidence indicating the generality and pervasiveness of these motivation influences on cognition, and introduce the associated ‘research nexus’ at Collabra: Psychology.

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Elaborating the role of reflection and individual differences in the study of folk-economic beliefs

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x18000274 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 41 ◽

Author(s):

Kevin Arceneaux

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Individual Differences ◽

Cognitive Processes ◽

Evolutionary History ◽

Behavioral Responses ◽

History Of ◽

Economic Beliefs

AbstractIntuitions guide decision-making, and looking to the evolutionary history of humans illuminates why some behavioral responses are more intuitive than others. Yet a place remains for cognitive processes to second-guess intuitive responses – that is, to be reflective – and individual differences abound in automatic, intuitive processing as well.

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The Role of Shared Decision-Making in Audiologic Rehabilitation

Perspectives on Aural Rehabilitation and Its Instrumentation ◽

10.1044/arri21.1.15 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 21 (1) ◽

pp. 15-23 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Helen Pryce ◽

Amanda Hall

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Shared Decision Making ◽

Behavior Changes ◽

Shared Decision ◽

Patient Centered ◽

Treatment Information ◽

Centered Care ◽

Potential Risks ◽

Audiologic Rehabilitation

Shared decision-making (SDM), a component of patient-centered care, is the process in which the clinician and patient both participate in decision-making about treatment; information is shared between the parties and both agree with the decision. Shared decision-making is appropriate for health care conditions in which there is more than one evidence-based treatment or management option that have different benefits and risks. The patient's involvement ensures that the decisions regarding treatment are sensitive to the patient's values and preferences. Audiologic rehabilitation requires substantial behavior changes on the part of patients and includes benefits to their communication as well as compromises and potential risks. This article identifies the importance of shared decision-making in audiologic rehabilitation and the changes required to implement it effectively.

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