Subjective Cognitive Effort Indexes Sub-Criticality in the Brain

项目总结/摘要 认知努力在主观上是昂贵的。它会导致人们对有价值的目标打折扣， 计划和仔细审议。因此，避免努力可能是有问题的，特别是在像这样的疾病中， 抑郁症和精神分裂症，过度的成本敏感性破坏了认知动机。解决 成本敏感性，我们首先需要了解大脑认为什么是昂贵的。传统的指标，如侧额叶 fMRI信号和EEG数据中的顶叶α去极化，跟踪认知负荷到一个点，但通常是高原 或下降，即使主观努力继续上升。这个项目将研究一个有前途的候选指标 关键性抑制。临界性表征静息时的皮质动力学，先前的研究 表明大脑变得越来越亚临界的条件下，众所周知，增加主观 努力：工作记忆负荷增加、疲劳、睡眠剥夺、新奇感和认知老化。在目标1中， 将用EEG监测临界抑制，并与主观的行为经济指标进行比较。 个人之间和个人内部的努力成本（捕捉成本敏感度的个体差异） （捕获跨负载水平的成本敏感度）。在目标2中，TMS将用于测试调制临界性是否 （人为地）影响对努力成本的敏感性，除了认知需求。最后，在目标3中，并发TMS- EEG将用于研究调节临界的机制。具体而言，目标3将检验假设 皮质兴奋-抑制平衡调节大脑运作到临界状态的程度， 从而了解人们对努力成本的敏感程度。因此，目标1和2将为申请人提供必要的 EEG和TMS方法培训，同时测试将关键性与主观认知联系起来的新假设 努力随后，在申请人的独立阶段，Aim 3将联合收割机结合并应用这些方法 测试可能构成认知努力、工作记忆和认知动机的假设机制。

Project Summary / Abstract Cognitive effort is subjectively costly. It can cause people to discount valuable goals and avoid thoughtful planning and careful deliberation. Effort avoidance can thus be problematic, especially in disorders like depression and schizophrenia where excessive cost sensitivity undermines cognitive motivation. To address cost sensitivity, we first need to understand what the brain treats as costly. Traditional indices, like lateral frontal fMRI signals, and parietal alpha desynchronization in EEG data, track cognitive load to a point, but often plateau or decline, even when subjective effort continues to rise. This project will examine a promising candidate metric of cognitive effort: criticality suppression. Criticality characterizes cortical dynamics at rest, and prior studies have shown that brains becomes increasingly sub-critical under the very conditions known to increase subjective effort: increasing working memory load, fatigue, sleep deprivation, novelty, and cognitive aging. In Aim 1, criticality suppression will be monitored with EEG, and compared to behavioral economic measures of subjective effort costs both across individuals (capturing individual differences in cost sensitivity) and within individuals (capturing cost sensitivity across load levels). In Aim 2, TMS will be used to test whether modulating criticality (artificially) impacts sensitivity to effort costs, apart from cognitive demands. Finally, in Aim 3, concurrent TMS- EEG will be used to investigate the mechanisms regulating criticality. In particular, Aim 3 will test the hypothesis that the cortical excitatory-inhibitory balance regulates how closely to a critical state the brain operates, and thereby how sensitive people are to effort costs. Aims 1 and 2 will thus provide the applicant with essential training in EEG and TMS methodologies while testing a novel hypothesis linking criticality to subjective cognitive effort. Subsequently, in the applicant’s independent phase, Aim 3 will combine and apply these methodologies to test hypothesized mechanisms which may underlie cognitive effort, working memory, and cognitive motivation.