NEUROECONOMICS OF COGNITIVE EFFORT

 描述（由申请人提供）：认知努力正在成为各种文献中越来越重要的概念，从日常结果的预测因素（例如学业成绩）到精神病理学，再到行为控制的基本原则。例如，对于理解无能和缺乏动机的疾病，努力可能特别重要。这可以解释为什么患有重度抑郁症的人在低强度任务中表现出良好的表现，但在要求较高的任务中表现却低于平均水平。然而，尽管人们的兴趣迅速增长，但人们对认知努力却知之甚少。有限的理解源于不精确的定义和贫乏的方法框架。我们建议通过使用一种新颖的方法来解决这一差距，即采用完善的行为和神经经济学方法，以贴现指数（即认知努力降低任务参与的主观价值的程度）形式形式化认知努力的概念。这种认知努力贴现指数提供了一个重要的杠杆点，可以从该点调查认知动机的个体差异，检查他们的大脑基础，并 确定他们有助于任务参与决策的关键机制。当前的项目通过一系列综合研究来探讨这些问题，这些研究涉及强大的受试者内实验设计、复杂的分析方法和尖端的功能磁共振成像方法。这项工作的成功将显着增进我们对有助于认知努力决策的基本神经机制的理解，并将通过为疾病（例如认知动机障碍在其中起主要作用的重度抑郁症）的诊断和干预提供目标而具有重要的临床意义。

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Cognitive effort is emerging as increasingly important construct in a diverse set of literature ranging from predictors of everyday outcomes (e.g. academic achievement), to psychopathology, to fundamental principles of behavioral control. Effort may be particularly important, for example, for understanding disorders of anergia and amotivation. It may explain why individuals with major depression demonstrate intact performance on low effort tasks, yet perform below average on demanding tasks. Yet, despite rapidly growing interest, very little is understood about cognitive effort. Limited understanding stems from imprecise definitions and impoverished methodological frameworks. We propose to address this gap by using a novel approach, that adapting well established behavioral and neuroeconomic methods to formalize the notion of cognitive effort, in terms of a discounting index (i.e., the degree to which cognitive effort reduces the subjective value of task engagement). This cognitive effort discounting index provides an important leverage point from which to investigate individual differences in cognitive motivation, examine their brain basis, and identify the key mechanisms by which they contribute to decision-making regarding task engagement. The current project explores these issues through an integrated series of studies that involve a powerful within-subjects experimental design, sophisticated analytic methods, and cutting-edge fMRI methodology. Success in this effort will significantly advance our understanding of the basic neural mechanisms that contribute to decisions about cognitive effort, and will have important clinical implications by providing targets for diagnosis and intervention in disorders, such as major depression, for which cognitive motivational impairments play a major role.