Aversive Motivation and Cognitive Control: Neural, Monoaminergic, and Computational Mechanisms

Aversive motivation plays a prominent role in motivating individuals to exert cognitive control. However, a significant obstacle has been the complexity of behavioral responses attributed to aversive incentives. In this review, we posit that incorporating motivational context and mixed motivation will enhance our current understanding of the neural and computational mechanisms underpinning these interactions. We highlight how delineating whether aversive incentives facilitate negative reinforcement or punishment can inform dissociable neural pathways and computational mechanisms for cognitive control allocation. Additionally, we demonstrate how including multiple bundled incentives in experimental paradigms enables precise measurement of aversive influences on cognitive control. The lateral habenula and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex are featured as part of a broader neural circuit for aversive motivational value, and dopaminergic and serotonergic projections may guide dissociable strategies for cognitive control allocation. Finally, these motivational dimensions help generate normative predictions for divergent strategies for control allocation. In sum, incorporating these motivational dimensions will facilitate more sophisticated understanding of the neural, monoaminergic, and computational mechanisms of aversive motivation and cognitive control.

No consistent startle modulation by reward

Previous studies have not clearly demonstrated whether motivational tendencies during reward feedback are mainly characterized by appetitive responses to a gain or mainly by aversive consequences of reward omission. In the current study this issue was addressed employing a passive head or tails game and using the startle reflex as an index of the appetitive-aversive continuum. A second aim of the current study was to use startle-reflex modulation as a means to compare the subjective value of monetary rewards of varying magnitude. Startle responses after receiving feedback that a potential reward was won or not won were compared with a baseline condition without a potential gain. Furthermore, startle responses during anticipation of no versus potential gain were compared. Consistent with previous studies, startle-reflex magnitudes were significantly potentiated when participants anticipated a reward compared to no reward, which may reflect anticipatory arousal. Specifically for the largest reward (20-cents) startle magnitudes were potentiated when a reward was at stake but not won, compared to a neutral baseline without potential gain. In contrast, startle was not inhibited relative to baseline when a reward was won. This suggests that startle modulation during feedback is better characterized in terms of potentiation when missing out on reward rather than in terms of inhibition as a result of winning. However, neither of these effects were replicated in a more targeted second experiment. The discrepancy between these experiments may be due to differences in motivation to obtain rewards or differences in task engagement. From these experiments it may be concluded that the nature of the processing of reward feedback and reward cues is very sensitive to experimental parameters and settings. These studies show how apparently modest changes in these parameters and settings may lead to quite different modulations of appetitive/aversive motivation. A future experiment may shed more light on the question whether startle-reflex modulation after feedback is indeed mainly characterized by the aversive consequences of reward omission for relatively large rewards.

c-Fos-MMP-9 pathway in central amygdala mediates approach motivation but not reward consumption

Although impairments of motivational and consummatory aspects of reward behavior are core symptoms of several psychiatric disorders, the underlying neural and molecular mechanisms remain poorly understood. Here we report that blocking either c-Fos or matrix metalloproteinase 9 in the central amygdala disrupts approach motivation and appetitive discrimination learning, but not reward consumption. Further, we show that manipulation of c-Fos-MMP-9 pathway does not affect aversive motivation and learning. These findings reveal molecular mechanism of motivational anhedonia.

Appetitive and aversive motivation in depression: The temporal dynamics of task-elicited asymmetries in alpha oscillations

The capability model of alpha asymmetries posits that state emotional manipulations are a more powerful detector of depression-related motivational deficits than alpha activity at rest. The present study used a time-frequency approach to investigate the temporal dynamics of event-related changes in alpha power during passive viewing of emotional pictures in individuals with dysphoria (n = 23) and in individuals without dysphoria (n = 24). In the whole group, the processing of pleasant and unpleasant compared to neutral pictures was associated with a decrease in event-related alpha power (i.e., alpha desynchronization) at centro-parietal and parietal scalp sites in the 538–1400 ms post-stimulus. The group with dysphoria revealed a smaller alpha desynchronization than the group without dysphoria in response to pleasant, but not neutral and unpleasant, stimuli at frontal, fronto-central and centro-parietal sites. Interestingly, at central and centro-parietal scalp sites, the difference between groups in response to pleasant stimuli was lateralized to the right hemisphere, whereas no clear lateralization was observed at frontal and fronto-central scalp sites. These findings suggest that decreased cortical activity (i.e., reduced alpha desynchronization) in a network involving bilateral frontal and right-lateralized parietal regions may provide a specific measure of deficits in approach-related motivation in depression.