The role of the orbitofrontal cortex in the pursuit of happiness and more specific rewards
The role of the orbitofrontal cortex in the pursuit of happiness and more specific rewards
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DOI：
10.1038/nature06993
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发表时间：
2008-07-17
期刊：
影响因子：
64.8
通讯作者：
Schoenbaum, Geoffrey
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Burke, Kathryn A.;Franz, Theresa M.;Schoenbaum, Geoffrey
可靠地预测奖励的线索触发了通常由这些奖励引起的想法和情绪。人类和其他动物会为这些线索而努力工作，通常相当努力。这被称为条件强化。使用条件反射来指导我们的行为的能力通常是有益的;然而，它可能会出错。例如，麦当劳的金色拱门等公司图标以强大的，有时令人惊讶的方式影响消费者行为（1），与药物相关的线索引发成瘾者和接触成瘾药物的动物重新吸毒，即使在戒断或灭绝之后（2，3）。然而，尽管它们普遍存在，但人们不知道条件反射是如何控制人类或其他动物的行为的。一种可能性是，他们通过使用他们预测的特定奖励来行动;或者，他们可以通过激活独立于任何特定奖励的情绪来直接控制行为。换句话说，金色拱门可能会推动业务，因为它们唤起了汉堡包和薯条的想法，或者相反，可能是有效的，因为它们也唤起了饥饿或幸福的感觉。此外，不同的大脑回路可以支持由特定结果的想法与更一般的情感信息介导的条件强化。在这里，我们试图在大鼠中解决这些问题。老鼠被训练学习，不同的线索预测不同的奖励使用专门的条件反射程序，控制是否线索唤起特定结果的想法或一般的情感表征共同的不同的结果。随后，这些大鼠有机会按下杠杆，以获得这些提示的简短和其他奖励。我们发现，大鼠愿意为引起结果特异性或一般情感表征的线索工作。此外，眶额皮层是一个对适应性决策非常重要的前额叶区域（4），它对前一种形式的条件强化至关重要，但对后一种形式的条件强化则不重要。
Cues that reliably predict rewards trigger the thoughts and emotions normally evoked by those rewards. Humans and other animals will work, often quite hard, for these cues. This is termed conditioned reinforcement. The ability to use conditioned reinforcers to guide our behaviour is normally beneficial; however, it can go awry. For example, corporate icons, such as McDonald's Golden Arches, influence consumer behaviour in powerful and sometimes surprising ways(1), and drug- associated cues trigger relapse to drug seeking in addicts and animals exposed to addictive drugs, even after abstinence or extinction(2,3). Yet, despite their prevalence, it is not known how conditioned reinforcers control human or other animal behaviour. One possibility is that they act through the use of the specific rewards they predict; alternatively, they could control behaviour directly by activating emotions that are independent of any specific reward. In other words, the Golden Arches may drive business because they evoke thoughts of hamburgers and fries, or instead, may be effective because they also evoke feelings of hunger or happiness. Moreover, different brain circuits could support conditioned reinforcement mediated by thoughts of specific outcomes versus more general affective information. Here we have attempted to address these questions in rats. Rats were trained to learn that different cues predicted different rewards using specialized conditioning procedures that controlled whether the cues evoked thoughts of specific outcomes or general affective representations common to different outcomes. Subsequently, these rats were given the opportunity to press levers to obtain short and otherwise unrewarded presentations of these cues. We found that rats were willing to work for cues that evoked either outcome- specific or general affective representations. Furthermore the orbitofrontal cortex, a prefrontal region important for adaptive decision-making(4), was critical for the former but not for the latter form of conditioned reinforcement.