Affective consequences of cognitive control: Inhibition and stimulus devaluation

认知控制的情感后果：抑制和刺激贬值

• 批准号: RGPIN-2019-04343
• 负责人: Fenske, Mark
• 金额: $ 2.91万
• 依托单位: University of Guelph
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2021-01-01 至 2022-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=737569
• 关键词: Affective; consequences; cognitive; control; Inhibition

Our day-to-day survival depends on specific neurocognitive mechanisms that prioritize the possible targets of our thoughts and actions. Of these, emotion-related processes are particularly important for signaling what is beneficial and should be approached, and what is potentially problematic and should be avoided. We are now learning about a range affective signals originating from specific mental operations, such as those related to ongoing performance during cognitive control. Such signals alter our evaluations of associated stimuli and the choices we make, and thereby have important implications for our understanding of the determinants of human behaviour. Research from my lab focuses on understanding how the brain's emotion and cognitive-control systems work together to guide behaviour. Along with our colleagues, we have shown that one cognitive mechanism in particular-inhibition-has negative affective consequences. We have identified key neural correlates of this inhibitory-devaluation effect and established that it occurs in several critical cognitive domains, including attention, motor-response selection, and working- and long-term memory. However, there is disagreement among leading accounts about exactly how inhibition leads to stimulus devaluation. And next to nothing is known about how the affective signals triggered by inhibition are related to those from other cognitive-control mechanisms. Over the next five years, my trainees and I will address these critical gaps in our understanding.  Our overarching hypothesis is that inhibition is one of multiple cognitive-control mechanisms that immediately elicit negative affect via coupled neural activity across fronto-limbic brain regions. This alters the coding in memory of stimulus-associated value, which guides subsequent affective evaluations and behavioural choices based on an item's cumulative cognitive-affective history. Emotion and cognitive control are important for virtually every aspect of human life. Our survival, quite literally, depends on proper functioning of these systems. The interaction of cognitive-control and emotion processes guide our judgments, influence decision making, and are critical for self-regulation. Our evidence that inhibitory devaluation impacts the contents of memory, the level of motivation to pursue or avoid emotionally-significant people and objects imply that the affective consequences of cognitive-control mechanisms may be far more prevalent and impact a much wider range of human behaviour than previously thought. Finding that mechanisms of cognitive control, such as inhibition, can determine emotional and motivational responses is thus an important and fundamental discovery with potentially critical clinical applications. The studies proposed here represent new important steps in an exciting and promising area of research.

我们的日常生存依赖于特定的神经认知机制，这些机制优先考虑我们思想和行动的可能目标。在这些过程中，与情绪相关的过程尤其重要，因为它表明什么是有益的，应该处理，什么是潜在的问题，应该避免。我们现在正在学习来自特定心理操作的一系列情感信号，例如那些与认知控制过程中的持续表现有关的信号。这些信号改变了我们对相关刺激的评估和我们所做的选择，从而对我们理解人类行为的决定因素具有重要意义。我实验室的研究重点是了解大脑的情绪和认知控制系统如何协同工作来指导行为。与我们的同事一起，我们已经证明了一种特别的认知机制--抑制--具有负面的情感后果。我们已经确定了这种抑制-贬值效应的关键神经相关因素，并确定它发生在几个关键的认知领域，包括注意力、运动反应选择、工作记忆和长期记忆。然而，对于抑制到底如何导致刺激贬值，主要观点之间存在分歧。此外，关于抑制引发的情感信号如何与其他认知控制机制产生的情感信号相关，几乎一无所知。在接下来的五年里，我和我的学员们将解决我们在理解上的这些关键差距。我们的首要假设是，抑制是多种认知控制机制之一，这些机制通过额叶-边缘脑区的耦合神经活动立即引发负面影响。这改变了记忆中与刺激相关的值的编码，该值指导随后的情感评估和基于一个项目累积的认知-情感历史的行为选择。情绪和认知控制几乎对人类生活的方方面面都很重要。确切地说，我们的生存依赖于这些系统的正常运作。认知控制和情绪过程的相互作用指导我们的判断，影响决策，对自我调节至关重要。我们的证据表明，抑制性贬值会影响记忆的内容，也就是追求或回避具有情感意义的人和物体的动机水平，这意味着认知控制机制的情感后果可能比之前认为的更加普遍，影响的人类行为范围也要广泛得多。因此，发现认知控制的机制，如抑制，可以决定情绪和动机反应，这是一项具有潜在关键临床应用的重要和基础发现。这里提出的研究代表了一个令人兴奋和有前途的研究领域的新的重要步骤。