Neural Economics and Biological Substrates of Valuation

神经经济学和估值的生物基础

基本信息

批准号：
7340683
负责人：
P Read Montague
金额：
$ 33万
依托单位：
BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
财政年份：
2004
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2004-12-05 至 2010-05-31
项目状态：
已结题

项目摘要

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Ongoing economic evaluation is a central function for any system that must operate with limited, finite resources, that is, all mobile creatures. The need for neural valuation mechanisms arises from the sheer breadth and variety of information available to a mobile creature's nervous system, and the fact that sensory stimuli and possible behavioral output must be prioritized. This presents a fundamental information-processing problem: vastly different stimuli and behavioral output must be placed on some common valuation scale. Without internal valuation systems in the nervous system, a creature would be unable to assess the relative value of intrinsically different events like drinking water, smelling food, scanning for predators, sitting quietly in the sun, and so forth. To decide on an appropriate behavior, the nervous system must estimate the value of each of these potential actions or stimuli, convert it to a common scale (currency), and use this scale to determine a course of action. This issue has long been appreciated by behavioral psychologists and economists; however, only recently have the underlying neural substrates been addressed experimentally in humans. Midbrain dopamine systems and the target neural structures to which they project have now been identified as participating in the valuation of future rewarding events. In particular, computational work has shown that a subset of these dopamine neurons encode and distribute a prediction error signal representing the ongoing difference between actual reward and predicted reward. This prediction error model of dopaminergic function has now led to behavioral models that predict human behavior on sequential decision-making tasks. These tasks ask the question: "How do humans value ongoing changes in rewarding stimuli?", a question with important implications for drug abuse. However, there has been no biological measure to correlate with these model-based behavioral predictions. The long-term goal of this proposal is to use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during the execution of sequential decision tasks to probe the brain responses that correlate with human performance. This work will provide fundamental insights into valuations mechanisms present in human brains.

描述（由申请人提供）：持续的经济评估是必须使用有限的有限资源（即所有移动生物）运行的任何系统的中心功能。对神经评估机制的需求来自移动生物的神经系统可用的广度和各种信息，并且必须优先考虑感觉刺激和可能的行为输出。这提出了一个基本的信息处理问题：必须将巨大不同的刺激和行为输出置于一些共同的估值范围内。没有神经系统中的内部评估系统，生物将无法评估本质上不同事件的相对价值，例如饮用水，闻到食物，对捕食者的扫描，安静地坐在阳光下等等。为了决定适当的行为，神经系统必须估算每个潜在动作或刺激的价值，将其转换为共同的量表（货币），并使用此规模来确定行动方案。行为心理学家和经济学家长期以来一直对这个问题表示赞赏。但是，直到最近才在人类的实验中解决了潜在的神经底物。中脑多巴胺系统及其预测到的目标神经结构现已被确定为参与未来奖励事件的估值。特别是，计算工作表明，这些多巴胺神经元的一个子集编码并分发了预测误差信号，代表实际奖励和预测奖励之间的持续差异。多巴胺能功能的这种预测错误模型现在导致了行为模型，这些模型可以预测连续决策任务上的人类行为。这些任务提出了一个问题：“人类如何重视奖励刺激的持续变化？”，这个问题对滥用药物有重要影响。但是，没有生物学措施与这些基于模型的行为预测相关。该提案的长期目标是在执行顺序决策任务期间使用功能磁共振成像（fMRI）来探测与人类绩效相关的大脑反应。这项工作将为人类大脑中存在的估值机制提供基本的见解。