Neurophysiology underlying neural representations of value

一系列行为、生理和认知反应(例如接近和回避， 自主反应和主观感受)反映了受试者的情绪状态。认知性 情绪调节是指以灵活的方式调节这些情绪反应的能力 根据一种认知操作。情绪过程的认知调节缺陷 是许多精神疾病的特征。然而，在日常生活中，特定的感官刺激和/或 根据情况或背景的不同，行动可以引起不同的情绪反应。上下文 通常依赖于在没有明确线索的情况下对当前情况的认知理解。 这些类型的上下文可以被称为“抽象”上下文。这项拨款研究的是一种 抽象上下文，其中上下文由任务集确定。任务集是一组刺激-- 响应-结果映射(或规则)，规定了特定试验的正确性能 阻止。以前的研究证明了灵长类动物学习这些抽象环境的能力，并且 抽象语境的神经表征存在于杏仁核和前额叶的两个区域 皮质(PFC)、前扣带回皮质和眶前叶皮质(ACC和OFC)。这笔赠款旨在 了解形成和维护这些表示的基础机制 上下文。与由误差信号驱动的监督学习相反，我们假设 时间相关试验类型的出现触发了无监督学习，推测是通过 涉及活性依赖塑性的Hebbian机制。这种学习可能是形成 任务集定义的抽象上下文的表示形式，我们将使用 目标1中的电生理记录。任务集的表示的创建需要 结合关于当前试验的信息和关于已经发生的试验的信息 最近。大脑结构，提供对最近事件的记忆痕迹和/或结合 随着时间推移的信息可以在任务集出现之前创建任务集的表示形式 在杏仁核、OFC和ACC观察到表达。因此，我们的下一个实验的目标是 与记忆过程有关的海马和背外侧PFC(DLPFC)，工作 记忆和执行功能。我们将比较和对比中任务集的编码 学习任务集期间和之后的海马区、DLPFC、OFC和ACC(目标2)。最后，我们 将使用因果方法来确定杏仁核和海马体的PFC输入是否起作用 维持这些语境表征，这可能是认知调节的重要机制 情感(目标3)。总体而言，这些实验有望阐明神经生理机制。 对正常的适应性情绪健康至关重要。 好了！

A range of behavioral, physiological, and cognitive responses (e.g. approach and avoidance, autonomic reactivity, and subjective feelings) reflects a subject's emotional state. The cognitive regulation of emotion refers to the capacity to regulate these emotional responses in a flexible manner according to a cognitive operation. Deficits in the cognitive regulation of emotional processes characterize many psychiatric disorders. In everyday life, however, particular sensory stimuli and/or actions can elicit different emotional responses depending upon the situation or context. Contexts often rely on a cognitive understanding of one's current situation in the absence of explicit cues. These types of contexts may be referred to as “abstract” contexts. This grant studies a type of abstract context where the context is determined by a task set. A task set is the set of stimulus- response-outcome mappings (or rules) that dictate correct performance for trials within a particular block. Previous research demonstrates the capacity of primates to learn these abstract contexts, and neural representations of abstract contexts exist in the amygdala and two areas in the prefrontal cortex (PFC), the anterior cingulate and orbitofrontal cortices (ACC and OFC). This grant seeks to understand the mechanisms that underlie the formation and maintenance of these representations of contexts. In contrast to supervised learning driven by error signals, we hypothesize that the occurrence of temporally associated trial types triggers unsupervised learning, presumably through a Hebbian mechanism involving activity-dependent plasticity. This learning could underlie formation of representations of abstract contexts defined by task sets, which will be explored with electrophysiological recordings in Aim 1. The creation of a representation of a task set requires combining information about the current trial with information about the trials that have occurred recently. Brain structures that provide memory traces of recent events and/or that combine information over time could create representations of a task set prior to the emergence of the representations observed in amygdala, OFC, and ACC. Our next experiments therefore target the hippocampus and dorsolateral PFC (DLPFC), which are implicated in memory processes, working memory, and executive functions. We will compare and contrast the encoding of task sets in hippocampus, DLPFC, OFC, and ACC during and after learning about task sets (Aim 2). Finally, we will use causal methods to determine if PFC input to the amygdala and the hippocampus acts to maintain these context representations, which could be a vital mechanism for the cognitive regulation of emotion (Aim 3). Overall, these experiments promise to illuminate neurophysiological mechanisms critical for normal adaptive emotional health. !