Interdisciplinary Study of the Striatum in Human Learning and Decision Making

奖励与特定行为的关联是日常生活中观察到的常见学习机制，导致对潜在奖励的预测和行为的塑造。 多年来，研究表明，一个特定的大脑结构，纹状体，是一个中心区域，涉及人类如何学习什么决定是有利的（例如，奖励）。 这项计划的目标是探索人类奖励学习和决策过程的神经基础，利用认知神经科学中的两种不同方法：功能神经成像和实验神经心理学。健康个体的功能性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神经心理学研究可以显示该区域是否也是该功能所必需的。在美国国家科学基金会的支持下，罗格斯大学的Mark Gluck、Mauricio Delgado和同事们提议将这两种方法结合起来，研究人类纹状体在以下过程中的作用：（1）强化直接取决于行动的学习，而不是被动观察的学习;（2）行动和强化之间存在延迟的学习。 平行研究将在帕金森病（PD）患者中进行，由于缺乏多巴胺能输入而导致纹状体功能障碍，并对健康受试者进行纹状体功能的神经影像学研究。这项研究的结果将有助于更深入地了解纹状体在决策和奖励预测中的作用，以及纹状体和相关脑区如何利用预测错误反馈。这项研究建立在先前对基底神经节在反馈学习中的作用的研究基础上，但也扩展到了新的和更复杂的认知领域，包括创建有关动作序列的链接预测链。学会预测未来的回报和其他积极的结果是我们在一个复杂，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的人的生活产生重大影响的决策提供了必要的知识。 这一发现可能会影响经济学和神经科学领域的跨学科研究，这些研究关注人类如何做出决策的机制。 此外，这项研究将使我们更深入地了解与PD相关的非运动性，更多的动机缺陷，为未来的研究方向提出新的想法。 最后，该提案旨在增加神经心理学和功能性神经成像方面的本科生、研究生和博士后受训人员的培训机会。

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.