Common and Distinct Reward and Punishment Systems in the Human Brain

在日常生活中，人们经常面临不同目标之间的选择。这些通常涉及在不同类型的奖励之间进行选择。例如，我应该花额外的时间在工作上以获得工资奖金，还是应该花时间与家人在一起？为了理解大脑如何计算不同类型的奖励之间的决定，有必要首先确定这些不同类型的奖励在大脑中是如何表现的。该项目的目标是确定不同的奖励是否在不同的大脑区域中表现出来，以及是否也存在一个对不同类型奖励做出类似反应的系统。在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，加州理工学院的约翰·奥多尔蒂博士和他的同事们将通过使用大脑成像技术来解决这些问题（功能性磁共振成像）来探测已知参与情绪反应和奖励处理的许多关键大脑区域中对奖励和惩罚的神经反应，包括杏仁核，眶额皮质，腹侧纹状体和前纹状体。在一系列实验中，人类志愿者将面临两种不同类型的奖励和惩罚：果汁（愉快和厌恶）和金钱（胜利和失败），在相同的实验中交错。然后，这些反应将被直接比较，以测试对两种类型的奖励或惩罚做出反应的区域，以及确定只对一种或另一种类型做出反应的区域。 大脑的反应将不仅被测量到奖励的接收，而且还被测量到他们的期望。这项工作将导致更全面地了解人类大脑中的奖励和惩罚表征。这项研究还可以深入了解复杂决策行为的机制，这些行为取决于不同类型奖励信息的整合。这项研究的发现有助于阐明所有动机行为背后的基本学习机制。这些发现可能会对认知神经科学以外的领域产生重大影响，如经济学和决策理论。这项研究还可能导致新技术的发展，以帮助人们做出更好的决定，或通过使用强化来改善学习和技能获取。该申请的资金将用于支持加州理工学院的一个新研究小组，该小组可以为认知神经科学和脑成像领域的本科生，研究生和博士后学员提供研究培训机会。

In the course of everyday life, people are frequently faced with decisions between different goals. Often these involve choices between different types of rewards. For example, should I spend extra hours at work to get that salary bonus, or should I spend that time instead to be with my family? In order to develop an understanding of how the brain computes decisions between different types of reward it is necessary to first determine how each of these different types of reward are represented in the brain. The goals of this project are to determine whether different rewards are represented in different brain areas, and whether there also exists a system that responds similarly to different types of reward. With support from the National Science Foundation, Dr. John O'Doherty and colleagues at the California Institute of Technology will address these questions by using brain imaging techniques (functional magnetic resonance imaging) to probe neural responses to rewards and punishments in a number of key brain regions known to be involved in processing of emotional responses and rewards, including the amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex, ventral striatum and anterior insula. A series of experiments will be conducted during which human volunteers will be presented with two different types of reward and punishment: juice (pleasant and aversive) and money (wins and losses), interleaved within the same experiments. These responses will then be compared directly to test for regions responding to both types of reward or punishment, as well as to determine regions that respond exclusively to one or other type. Brain responses will be measured not only to the receipt of reward, but also to their expectation. This work will result in a more comprehensive picture of reward and punishment representations in the human brain. The research could also provide insights into the mechanisms underlying complex decision making behaviors that depend on integration of different types of reward information. The findings generated by this research could help elucidate the fundamental learning mechanisms that underlie all motivated behaviors. Such findings could have a significant impact on fields outside cognitive neuroscience such as economics and decision theory. This research could also lead to the development of novel techniques to help people make better decisions, or improve learning and skill acquisition through the use of reinforcement. The funding from this application will be used to support a new research group at Caltech which can provide research training opportunities for undergraduate, graduate and post-doctoral trainees in cognitive neuroscience and brain imaging.