NEUROECONOMICS OF COGNITIVE EFFORT

 描述(由申请者提供)：认知努力在一系列不同的文献中正逐渐成为越来越重要的概念，从预测日常结果(例如，学习成绩)到精神病理学，再到行为控制的基本原则。努力可能特别重要，例如，对于理解神经痛和运动障碍。这可能解释了为什么患有严重抑郁症的人在低努力任务中表现完好，但在高要求任务中的表现却低于平均水平。然而，尽管人们的兴趣迅速增长，但人们对认知努力的了解却很少。认识有限源于不准确的定义和贫乏的方法框架。我们建议使用一种新的方法来解决这一差距，即采用成熟的行为学和神经经济学方法，根据折扣指数(即认知努力降低任务投入的主观价值的程度)来形式化认知努力的概念。这一认知努力折现指数提供了一个重要的杠杆点，可以从这个点来研究认知动机的个体差异，检查他们的大脑基础，以及 确定关键机制，通过这些机制可以帮助制定有关任务参与的决策。目前的项目通过一系列集成的研究来探索这些问题，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。这一努力的成功将极大地促进我们对有助于决定认知努力的基本神经机制的理解，并将通过为诊断和干预疾病提供靶标而具有重要的临床意义，例如，认知动机障碍在抑郁症中发挥着重要作用。

 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.