The role of medial prefrontal cortex in motivated social cognition

这个项目探索了允许我们以我们想要的方式评估自己的神经机制。 自我评价是一个核心的社会认知过程，影响医疗决策，情绪健康，人际关系以及学校和工作的生产力。如果我们否认问题的存在，或者用玫瑰色的眼镜看待自己的能力，我们就不可能寻求帮助，也不会有足够的时间来完成一项任务。自我评价紊乱是许多心理健康问题的一个特征，如抑郁症、精神分裂症和自闭症。目前很少有人知道自我评价是如何影响一般人群的神经生物学发展或与疾病相关的神经生物学损伤。我们对自我评价的认知不足，是因为神经模型远远落后于心理模型。因此，有一个很大的需要发展自我评价的神经生物学模型。该项目将使用功能磁共振成像，心理学理论和计算建模的组合来解决阻碍自我处理神经模型发展的两个关键瓶颈。首先，本研究将阐明动机对自我评价影响的神经结构。动机对自我评价的影响在心理学模型中起着重要作用，但目前被神经科学所忽视。此外，这些研究将解开一个关键的混淆目前在大多数现有的研究自我评价。具体来说，该项目将研究是否内侧前额叶皮层，最一贯与自我评价相关的区域，用于支持社会情绪处理或社会评价的认知特性。研究结果将改变我们对抑郁症、精神分裂症和自闭症等疾病的神经基础的概念，这些疾病的特征是自我评价紊乱，但目前只能通过其他过程的神经模型来理解。研究结果将弥合心理学和神经认知模型之间的差距，为下一代自我评价研究提供信息，并为奖励处理、选择性注意和决策的相关研究提供信息。

This project explores the neural mechanisms that permit us to evaluate ourselves in the way we would like. Self-evaluation is a core social-cognitive process that affects healthcare decisions, emotional well-being, interpersonal relations, and productivity at school and work. If we deny a problem exists or view our abilities through rose-colored glasses, we are not likely to seek help or allow adequate time to perform a task. Disordered self-evaluation is a feature of many mental health issues such as depression, schizophrenia, and autism. Currently little is know about how self-evaluation is affected by neurobiological development in the general population or the neurobiological impairments associated with disorders. Our lack of knowledge stems from the fact that neural models of self-evaluation trail far behind psychological models. Thus, there is a great need to develop neurobiological models of self-evaluation. The proposed project will use a combination of fMRI, psychological theory, and computational modeling to address two critical bottlenecks that impede development of neural models of self-processing. First, the studies will illuminate the neural architecture of motivational influences on self-evaluation. Motivational influences on self-evaluation play a fundamental role in psychological models yet are currently ignored by neuroscience. Additionally, the studies will disentangle a critical confound present in most of the existing research on self-evaluation. Specifically, the project will examine whether the medial prefrontal cortex, the region most consistently associated with self-evaluation, serves to support socioemotional processing or cognitive properties of social evaluation. Results will transform our conceptualization of the neural basis of disorders such as depression, schizophrenia, and autism which feature disordered self-evaluation but are currently only understood through neural models of other processes. The results will bridge gaps between psychological and neurocognitive models to inform the next generation of self-evaluation research as well as inform related inquiries into reward-processing, selective attention, and decision-making.