Neural Economics of Biological Substrates of Valuation

描述（由申请人提供）：所有社会交换的基本认知组成部分之一是互惠——一个主体的社会姿态应该得到另一个主体大致相同姿态的回应。尽管互惠作为一种基本的认知机制很重要，但我们对人类互惠本能的神经和行为理解仍处于初级阶段。本提案的总体目标是探索各种双主体设置中的互惠性，揭示其在这种分阶段社会交换中对行为反应的影响，并生成其计算组件的数学数据驱动描述。在所有情况下，我们都试图通过功能磁共振成像（fMRI）将涉及两种介质之间相互作用的行为变量与潜在的神经相关性联系起来。我们充分利用了行为经济学中常用的经济交换博弈。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): One of the fundamental cognitive components of all social exchange is reciprocity - the concept that a social gesture by one agent should be answered by a roughly equivalent gesture from the other agent. Despite the importance of reciprocity as a fundamental cognitive mechanism, our neural and behavioral understanding of reciprocity instincts in humans remains rudimentary. The overall goal of this proposal is to probe reciprocity across a variety of two-agent settings, expose its influence on behavioral responses during such staged social exchange, and generate mathematical data-driven descriptions of its computational components. In all cases, we seek to relate behavioral variables involved in reciprocal interaction between two agents to underlying neural correlates as measured by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We make liberal use of economic exchange games commonly employed in behavioral economics. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The fundamental brain and cognitive mechanisms underlying social interactions among humans are almost completely unknown. This tremendous gap in our knowledge is made worse by the fact that many forms of mental illness and brain injury severely impair our capacity to sustain normal cooperative interactions with other humans. This proposal will use functional magnetic resonance imaging, staged social interactions, and computational theory to probe the way that humans carry out reciprocal social exchange.