Stress, Arousal and Mood: Affective Influences on Decisions under Uncertainty

项目摘要 物质成瘾的特征是强迫性和破坏性的选择。关于物质使用的决定从根本上说是关于可能出现的消极或积极后果的不确定性决定。这项拟议的研究将确定和操纵可能在不确定情况下做出决策时发挥作用的情感因素。结合情感科学、神经经济学和成瘾的见解、专业知识和技术，我们将系统地探索和表征特定的影响变量如何调节离散的决策过程，这在涉及物质使用的决策中可能特别常见。具体地说，我们将评估和操纵情绪的特定组成部分--唤醒、压力和情绪--以表征它们如何独特地调节三个可量化的独立变量，这些变量有助于在不确定的情况下做出决定。这项研究的意义在于，如果我们能更准确地刻画情感因素对决策的影响，我们就可以利用这些知识开发出更有效的方法来影响关于物质使用的选择。具体目标1将考察对选择选项的短暂唤醒、急性压力和情绪如何独立地影响对风险和模棱两可的敏感性。研究发现，与风险相比，个人更不喜欢含糊其辞，他们更喜欢概率已知的赌博，而不是概率未知的赌博。关于物质使用的决定本质上是有风险的，有些选择更不明确，因为选择的结果具有未知的概率。这项拟议的研究考察了觉醒、情绪和压力如何独立地调节对风险和模棱两可的敏感性。具体目标2将评估觉醒、急性和慢性压力和情绪如何调节顺序决策中的不确定性评估，特别是一个人是应该坚持当前的行动路线，还是应该停止和追求替代方案。是坚持还是停止的决定从根本上体现在觅食决定中。觅食的概念来自行为生态学，用来描述动物是如何决定要么坚持开发目前正在枯竭的食物资源(或块)，要么以时间和精力为代价停止并寻找新的、不确定的、但潜在更丰富的食物资源。重要的是，觅食的基本原则已经被证明捕捉到了一系列复杂的人类决策，并可能延伸到在选择是继续还是坚持药物滥用行为或停止并尝试另一种行动方式时使用药物。跨域，最优觅食决策的特征是边际价值定理(MVT)，它允许评估不同的影响变量如何对最优或非最优选择做出贡献。具体目标3概述了一项关于上瘾人群在治疗前后的不确定性下如何对决定做出不同反应的探索性调查。

Project Summary Substance addiction is characterized by compulsive and destructive choices. Decisions regarding substance use are fundamentally decisions of uncertainty regarding the negative or positive consequences that may arise. The proposed research will identify and manipulate affective factors that may play a role in decisions under uncertainty. Bringing together insights, expertise and techniques from affective science, neuroeconomics and addiction, we will systematically explore and characterize how specific affect variables modulate discrete decision processes that may be particularly common in decisions involving substance use. Specifically, we will both assess and manipulate specific components of affect – arousal, stress, and mood -- to characterize how they may uniquely modulate three quantifiable, independent variables that contribute to decisions under uncertainty. The significance of the proposed research lies in the premise that if we can more accurately characterize the impact of affective factors on decision-making, we can use this knowledge to develop more effective means to influence choices concerning substance use. Specific Aim 1 will examine how transient arousal to the choice options, acute stress and mood may independently influence sensitivity to risk and ambiguity. Research finds that individuals are more averse to ambiguity than risk, preferring gambles with known probabilities over gambles with unknown probabilities. Decisions regarding substance use are by their nature risky and some choices more ambiguous in that the choice outcome has unknown probabilities. The proposed research examines how arousal, mood and stress independently modulate sensitivity to risk and ambiguity. Specific Aim 2 will assess how arousal, acute and chronic stress and mood modulates assessments of uncertainty in sequential decisions, specifically whether one should persist in a current course of action, or desist and pursue alternatives. The decision of whether to persist or desist is fundamentally captured in foraging decisions. The concept of foraging comes from behavioral ecology and is used to describe how animals decide to either persist in exploiting a current, depleting food resource (or patch), or desist and search for a new, uncertain, but potentially more abundant food resource at a cost of time and effort. Importantly, the basic principles of foraging have been shown to capture a range of complex human decisions, and may extend to drug use when choosing whether to stay or persist with substance abuse behavior or desist and try an alternative course of action. Across domains, optimal foraging decisions are characterized by the marginal value theorem (MVT), which allows the assessment of how different affect variables contribute to optimal, or non-optimal choices. Specific Aim 3 outlines an exploratory investigation of how an addicted population differentially responds to decisions under uncertainty pre and post-treatment.