A Neural and Computational Framework of the Effort Paradox

努力是成功人生的必要条件。从马拉松训练，到在工作截止日期前完成一个项目，实现我们的目标需要我们反复选择采取努力的行动。这种目标导向动机的病理性减少是精神病学和神经病学中一些最常见和使人衰弱的症状的特征。此外，解决人类面临的最大挑战（如气候变化）需要数十亿人付出比以往更多的努力。然而，我们对动机研究面临的最大挑战——努力悖论的理解有限。一方面，几十年的研究表明，人们遵循最少努力的法则，避免付出努力的成本。另一方面，在学校、工作或我们的爱好中，人们每天都在打破这一规律，当有更容易的选择时，我们追求并寻求高度努力的行为。大脑是如何同时处理努力的，既要避免付出代价，又要寻求好处的？EffDox将为我们对动机的认知、计算和神经基础的理解带来范式转变，从而解决这一悖论。它将提供新的范例和计算模型来理解认知过程和个体差异，这些差异是人们如何从逃避努力转向寻求努力的基础。一套神经科学工具，以前从未结合起来研究动机，将提供一个新的理解和测试关于神经动力学的具体假设。这将包括在健康人身上“融合”功能性磁共振成像（fMRI）和脑磁图（MEG）的多变量技术；在帕金森病患者的独特样本中，同时进行深部脑刺激、皮质颅内和皮质下记录，并使用可穿戴式脑磁图测试多巴胺、动机和神经信号之间的联系。这些概念上、方法上和分析上的创新将揭示对努力悖论的新理解。

Exerting effort is essential for a successful life. From training for a marathon, to completing a project before work deadlines, meeting our goals requires us to repeatedly choose to undertake effortful acts. Pathological reductions in such goal-directed motivation characterise some of the most common and debilitating symptoms in psychiatry and neurology. Moreover, solving humanities greatest challenges (e.g. climate change) will require billions of people to exert more effort than they typically do. Yet, we have a limited understanding of the biggest challenge to research on motivation: the effort paradox. On one hand, decades of research shows that people conform to a law of least effort, avoiding the cost of effort. On the other hand, at school, work or in our hobbies, people break that law daily, we pursue and seek highly effortful acts when easier options are available. How does the brain concurrently process effort as a cost to avoid, but a benefit to seek? EffDox will deliver a paradigm shift in our understanding of the cognitive, computational and neural basis of motivation to address this paradox. It will provide novel paradigms and computational models to understand the cognitive processes and individual differences that underlie how people switch from avoiding effort to seeking it. A suite of neuroscience tools, never previously combined to examine motivation, will offer a new understanding and test specific hypotheses about the neural dynamics underlying effort. This will include multivariate techniques to 'fuse' together functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and Magnetoencephalography (MEG) in healthy people; simultaneous deep brain stimulation, cortical intracranial and subcortical recordings, in unique samples of Parkinson's disease (PD) patients, and testing links between dopamine, motivation and neural signals with wearable MEG. These conceptual, methodological and analytical innovations will reveal a new understanding of the effort paradox.