Interdisciplinary Study of the Striatum in Human Learning and Decision Making

奖励与具体行动的关联是日常生活中观察到的一种常见的学习机制，它导致对潜在奖励的预测和行为的塑造。多年来，研究表明，纹状体是一种特殊的大脑结构，它是人类如何学习哪些决定是有利的(例如，导致奖励)的中央区域。这项提议的目标是利用认知神经科学中的两种截然不同的方法：功能神经成像和实验神经心理学，探索人类奖励学习和决策过程的神经基础。健康个体的功能神经成像可以显示大脑区域是否正常参与认知功能；对同一大脑区域受损的个体进行的神经心理学研究可以表明该区域是否也是该功能所必需的。在国家科学基金会的支持下，罗格斯大学的Mark Gluck博士、Mauricio Delgado博士及其同事建议整合这两种方法来研究人类纹状体在以下过程中的作用：(1)当强化直接取决于行动而不是从被动观察中学习时，(2)当行动和强化之间存在延迟时的学习。帕金森氏病(PD)患者因缺乏多巴胺能输入而导致纹状体功能障碍的患者将进行平行研究，健康受试者将进行纹状体功能的神经成像研究。这项研究的结果将有助于更深入地理解纹状体在决策和奖励预测中的作用，以及纹状体和相关大脑区域如何利用预测误差反馈。这项研究建立在先前关于基底神经节在反馈学习中的作用的研究基础上，但也扩展到新的、更复杂的认知领域，包括创建关于动作序列的关联预测链。学会预测未来的回报和其他积极的结果是我们在复杂、动态和不确定的世界中生存的基础；它为做出对我们的生活和我们周围人的生活产生重大影响的决定提供了基本的知识。这些发现可能会影响经济学和神经科学中的跨学科研究，这些研究关注人类如何做出决定的机制。此外，这项研究将使我们更深入地了解与帕金森病相关的非机动性、更多的动机缺陷，为未来的研究方向提供新的思路。最后，该提案旨在增加本科生、研究生和博士后学员在神经心理学和功能神经成像方面的培训机会。

The association of rewards with specific actions is a common learning mechanism observed in day to day life that lead to predictions about potential rewards and shaping of behaviors. Over the years, research has suggested that one particular brain structure, the striatum, is a central region involved in how humans learn what decisions are advantageous (e.g., lead to reward). The goal of this proposal is to explore the neural substrates of human reward learning and decision-making processes drawing on two distinct methodologies in cognitive neuroscience: functional neuroimaging and experimental neuropsychology. Functional neuroimaging in healthy individuals can show whether a brain region is normally involved in a cognitive function; neuropsychological studies of individuals with damage localized to the same brain region can show whether or not that region is also necessary for that function. With support from the National Science Foundation, Drs. Mark Gluck, Mauricio Delgado and colleagues at Rutgers University propose to integrate both methodologies to investigate the role of the human striatum during (1) learning when reinforcement is directly contingent on actions as opposed to learning from passive observation, (2) learning when there is a delay between action and reinforcement. Parallel studies will be conducted in patients with striatal dysfunction due to lack of dopaminergic input that occurs in Parkinson's disease (PD) and neuroimaging studies of striatal function in healthy subjects.Results from this research will contribute to a deeper understanding of the role of the striatum in decision making and in reward prediction, and of how the striatum, and related brain regions, utilize prediction-error feedback. This research builds on prior studies of the role of the basal ganglia in feedback learning, but also expands into new and more complex cognitive domains, including the creation of chains of linked predictions about sequences of actions. Learning to predict future rewards and other positive outcomes is fundamental to our survival in a complex, dynamic and uncertain world; it provides essential knowledge for making decisions that critically affect our lives, and the lives of those around us. The findings could influence interdisciplinary research in economics and neuroscience concerned about the mechanisms of how humans make decisions. Further, the research will give us a deeper understanding of the non-motoric, more motivational deficits associated with PD, eliciting new ideas for future research directions. Finally, the proposal aims to increase training opportunities for undergraduate, graduate and post-doctoral trainees in both neuropsychology and functional neuroimaging.