The Interplay Between Reward-Relevant Life Events and Trait Reward Sensitivity in Neural Responses to Reward Cues

The reward-hypersensitivity model posits that trait reward hypersensitivity should elicit hyper/hypo-approach motivation following exposure to recent life events that activate (goal striving and goal attainment) or deactivate (goal failure) the reward system, respectively. To test these hypotheses, we had 87 young adults with high trait reward (HRew) sensitivity or moderate trait reward (MRew) sensitivity report frequency of life events via the Life Event Interview. Brain activation was assessed during the functional MRI monetary-incentive-delay task. Greater exposure to goal-striving events was associated with higher nucleus accumbens (NAc) reward anticipation among HRew participants and lower orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) reward anticipation among MRew participants. Greater exposure to goal-failure events was associated with higher NAc and OFC reward anticipation only among HRew participants. This study demonstrated different neural reward anticipation (but not outcome) following reward-relevant events for HRew individuals compared with MRew individuals. Trait reward sensitivity and reward-relevant life events may jointly modulate reward-related brain function, which has implications for understanding psychopathology.

Download Full-text

Cortical response to naturalistic stimuli is largely predictable with deep neural networks

Science Advances ◽

10.1126/sciadv.abe7547 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 7 (22) ◽

pp. eabe7547

Author(s):

Meenakshi Khosla ◽

Gia H. Ngo ◽

Keith Jamison ◽

Amy Kuceyeski ◽

Mert R. Sabuncu

Keyword(s):

Brain Function ◽

Deep Neural Networks ◽

Neural Responses ◽

Dynamic Interactions ◽

Hierarchical Processing ◽

Human Connectome Project ◽

Neural Information ◽

Neural Information Processing ◽

Visual Interactions ◽

High Level

Naturalistic stimuli, such as movies, activate a substantial portion of the human brain, invoking a response shared across individuals. Encoding models that predict neural responses to arbitrary stimuli can be very useful for studying brain function. However, existing models focus on limited aspects of naturalistic stimuli, ignoring the dynamic interactions of modalities in this inherently context-rich paradigm. Using movie-watching data from the Human Connectome Project, we build group-level models of neural activity that incorporate several inductive biases about neural information processing, including hierarchical processing, temporal assimilation, and auditory-visual interactions. We demonstrate how incorporating these biases leads to remarkable prediction performance across large areas of the cortex, beyond the sensory-specific cortices into multisensory sites and frontal cortex. Furthermore, we illustrate that encoding models learn high-level concepts that generalize to task-bound paradigms. Together, our findings underscore the potential of encoding models as powerful tools for studying brain function in ecologically valid conditions.

Download Full-text

The Role of Social Reward and Corticostriatal Connectivity in Substance Use

10.31234/osf.io/su7vg ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Daniel Sazhin ◽

Angelique Frazier ◽

Caleb River Haynes ◽

Camille Johnston ◽

Iris Ka-Yi Chat ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Substance Use ◽

Social Context ◽

Orbitofrontal Cortex ◽

Strategic Behavior ◽

Reward Processing ◽

Reward Sensitivity ◽

Social Reward ◽

Neural Responses ◽

Social Stimuli ◽

Neuroimaging Study

This report describes an ongoing R03 grant that explores the links between trait reward sensitivity, substance use, and neural responses to social and nonsocial reward. Although previous research has shown that trait reward sensitivity and neural responses to reward are linked to substance use, whether this relationship is impacted by how people process social stimuli remains unclear. We are investigating these questions via a neuroimaging study with college-aged participants, using individual difference measures that examine the relation between substance use, social context, and trait reward sensitivity with tasks that measure reward anticipation, strategic behavior, social reward consumption, and the influence of social context on reward processing. We predict that substance use will be tied to distinct patterns of striatal dysfunction. Specifically, reward hyposensitive individuals will exhibit blunted striatal responses to social and non-social reward and enhanced connectivity with the orbitofrontal cortex; in contrast, reward hypersensitive individuals will exhibit enhanced striatal responses to social and non-social reward and blunted connectivity with the orbitofrontal cortex. We also will examine the relation between self-reported reward sensitivity, substance use, and striatal responses to social reward and social context. We predict that individuals reporting the highest levels of substance use will show exaggerated striatal responses to social reward and social context, independent of self-reported reward sensitivity. Examining corticostriatal responses to reward processing will help characterize the relation between reward sensitivity, social context and substance use while providing a foundation for understanding risk factors and isolating neurocognitive mechanisms that may be targeted to increase the efficacy of interventions.

Download Full-text

Peripheral immune cell reactivity and neural response to reward in patients with depression and anhedonia

Translational Psychiatry ◽

10.1038/s41398-021-01668-1 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Sara Costi ◽

Laurel S. Morris ◽

Abigail Collins ◽

Nicolas F. Fernandez ◽

Manishkumar Patel ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Mononuclear Cells ◽

Immune Cell ◽

Ex Vivo ◽

Flanker Task ◽

Reward Processing ◽

Neural Responses ◽

Depressed Patients ◽

Reward Anticipation ◽

Peripheral Leukocytes ◽

Immune Score

AbstractIncreased levels of peripheral cytokines have been previously associated with depression in preclinical and clinical research. Although the precise nature of peripheral immune dysfunction in depression remains unclear, evidence from animal studies points towards a dysregulated response of peripheral leukocytes as a risk factor for stress susceptibility. This study examined dynamic release of inflammatory blood factors from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) in depressed patients and associations with neural and behavioral measures of reward processing. Thirty unmedicated patients meeting criteria for unipolar depressive disorder and 21 healthy control volunteers were enrolled. PBMCs were isolated from whole blood and stimulated ex vivo with lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Olink multiplex assay was used to analyze a large panel of inflammatory proteins. Participants completed functional magnetic resonance imaging with an incentive flanker task to probe neural responses to reward anticipation, as well as clinical measures of anhedonia and pleasure including the Temporal Experience of Pleasure Scale (TEPS) and the Snaith-Hamilton Pleasure Scale (SHAPS). LPS stimulation revealed larger increases in immune factors in depressed compared to healthy subjects using an aggregate immune score (t49 = 2.83, p = 0.007). Higher peripheral immune score was associated with reduced neural responses to reward anticipation within the ventral striatum (VS) (r = −0.39, p = 0.01), and with reduced anticipation of pleasure as measured with the TEPS anticipatory sub-score (r = −0.318, p = 0.023). Our study provides new evidence suggesting that dynamic hyper-reactivity of peripheral leukocytes in depressed patients is associated with blunted activation of the brain reward system and lower subjective anticipation of pleasure.

Download Full-text

Education-related goal appraisals and self-esteem during the transition to secondary education: A longitudinal study

International Journal of Behavioral Development ◽

10.1177/0165025409359888 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 34 (6) ◽

pp. 481-490 ◽

Cited By ~ 17

Author(s):

Kati Vasalampi ◽

Katariina Salmela-Aro ◽

Jari-Erik Nurmi

Keyword(s):

Secondary Education ◽

Goal Attainment ◽

Self Esteem ◽

Comprehensive School ◽

The Self ◽

Goal Progress ◽

Goal Striving ◽

One Year ◽

Education Academic ◽

Transition To Secondary Education

This study investigated whether adolescents’ appraisals of their education-related goals change during the transition from comprehensive school to postcomprehensive secondary education (academic vs. vocational track) and how such appraisals contribute to their self-esteem. Six hundred and seven 16-year-old adolescents were surveyed three times: (1) at the beginning, (2) at the end of the final spring term of comprehensive school, and (3) one year after the transition to postcomprehensive secondary education. They were asked to appraise their education-related goal in terms of intrinsic and extrinsic reasons for goal striving, goal progress, effort, and stress. The results showed that, when adolescents ended up in a mode of education that was congruent with their skills, their intrinsic reasons for goal strivings and goal progress increased. Moreover, progress towards goal attainment contributed to self-esteem, and self-esteem also predicted goal progress. Furthermore, the higher the self-esteem in comprehensive school, the lower the level of extrinsic reasons for goal striving after the transition.

Download Full-text

Life Events Shape Us

10.1093/med/9780190850128.003.0003 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Jack M. Gorman

Keyword(s):

Life Events ◽

Brain Function ◽

Early Life ◽

Life Experiences ◽

Regulation Of Gene Expression ◽

Laboratory Animals ◽

Early Life Adversity ◽

Psychiatric Conditions ◽

The 1960S ◽

The Brain

Psychiatry downplayed the importance of life events in causing mental illness from the 1960s on, favoring a view that all disorders except one are the result of abnormal genes affecting chemical processes in the brain. Studying the exception, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), when it was defined in 1980 helped lead to renewed recognition that early life adversity is central to all psychiatric conditions. At the same time, neuroscientists showed that early life experiences are capable of changing life-long behavior and brain function in laboratory animals. One mechanism by which this occurs is through the epigenetic regulation of gene expression. Epigenetics is the way that the expression levels of genes are controlled without changing the underlying genetic code. Epigenetics is an attractive way of understanding how individual life experiences are translated in the brain into each person’s unique set of emotions, behaviors, abilities, and risks for psychiatric abnormalities.

Download Full-text

The Neuroscientific Study of Music: A Burgeoning Discipline

The Oxford Handbook of Music and the Brain ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198804123.013.1 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 1-16 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Donald A. Hodges ◽

Michael H. Thaut

Keyword(s):

Eighteenth Century ◽

Brain Function ◽

Research Literature ◽

Neural Responses ◽

Healthy Individuals ◽

Developmental Issues ◽

Cultural Contexts ◽

Early Twenty ◽

Franz Joseph Gall ◽

The Brain

Numerous pioneers laid the groundwork for current neuromusical research. Beginning with Franz Joseph Gall in the eighteenth century, and continuing with John Hughlings Jackson, August Knoblauch, Richard Wallaschek, and others, these early forerunners were interested in localizing musicality in the brain and learning more about how music is processed in both healthy individuals and those with dysfunctions of various kinds. Since then, research literature has mushroomed, especially in the latter part of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The current volume features the work of fifty-four authors who have contributed over 350,000 words in thirty-three chapters. These chapters are organized into sections on music, the brain, and cultural contexts; music processing in the human brain; neural responses to music; musicianship and brain function; developmental issues in music and the brain; music, the brain, and health; and the future.

Download Full-text

Asymmetric brain function, affective style, and psychopathology: The role of early experience and plasticity

Development and Psychopathology ◽

10.1017/s0954579400004764 ◽

1994 ◽

Vol 6 (4) ◽

pp. 741-758 ◽

Cited By ~ 141

Author(s):

Richard J. Davidson

Keyword(s):

Prefrontal Cortex ◽

Individual Differences ◽

Brain Function ◽

Goal Attainment ◽

Early Experience ◽

Frontal Asymmetry ◽

Affective Style ◽

Approach And Withdrawal ◽

Over Time

AbstractA model of asymmetric contributions to the control of different subcomponents of approach- and withdrawal-related emotion and psychopathology is presented. Two major forms of positive affect are distinguished. An approach-related form arises prior to goal attainment, and another form follows goal attainment. The former is hypothesized to be associated with activation of the left prefrontal cortex. Individual differences in patterns of prefrontal activation are stable over time. Hypoactivation in this region is proposed to result in approach-related deficits and increase an individual's vulnerability to depression. Data in support of these proposals are presented. The issue of plasticity is then considered from several perspectives. Contextual factors are superimposed upon tonic individual differences and modulate the magnitude of asymmetry. Pharmacological challenges also alter patterns of frontal asymmetry. A diverse array of evidence was then reviewed that lends support to the notion that these patterns of asymmetry may be importantly influenced by early environmental factors that result in enduring changes in brain function and structure.

Download Full-text

Goal attainment, goal striving, and well-being during the transition to adulthood: A ten-year U.S. national longitudinal study

New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development ◽

10.1002/cd.279 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 2010 (130) ◽

pp. 27-40 ◽

Cited By ~ 22

Author(s):

Emily E. Messersmith ◽

John E. Schulenberg

Keyword(s):

Longitudinal Study ◽

Transition To Adulthood ◽

Goal Attainment ◽

Well Being ◽

National Longitudinal Study ◽

Goal Striving

Download Full-text

Goal Striving and Well-Being in Sport: The Role of Contextual and Personal Motivation

Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology ◽

10.1123/jsep.2013-0261 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 36 (5) ◽

pp. 446-459 ◽

Cited By ~ 17

Author(s):

Laura C. Healy ◽

Nikos Ntoumanis ◽

Jet J.C.S. Veldhuijzen van Zanten ◽

Nicola Paine

Keyword(s):

Structural Equation ◽

Goal Attainment ◽

Well Being ◽

Psychological Needs ◽

Basic Psychological Needs ◽

Equation Modeling ◽

Goal Striving ◽

Personal Motivation ◽

Goal Motivation ◽

Coach Behaviors

This investigation sought to clarify mixed results in the literature exploring coach behaviors, basic psychological needs, goal motivation, and well- and ill-being. Regional-level team sport athletes (N = 241) completed questionnaires on the aforementioned variables at the beginning of the season. A subsample (n = 70) provided saliva samples to assess physical ill-being. At the end of the season, athletes (n = 98) reported their goal motivation and attainment. Structural equation modeling demonstrated that coach behaviors were related to needs satisfaction and thwarting, which were related to autonomous and controlled goal motives respectively. Autonomous motives were related to well- and ill-being; controlled motives were only related to ill-being. Over time, only end-of-season autonomous goal motives were related to goal attainment. The findings provide an insight into how coaches can facilitate optimum goal striving and well-being in their athletes.

Download Full-text