Decision making and affective processing

决策的有效性通常是通过它是否导致有益的结果来衡量的。超过 在过去的十年里，不同的研究项目已经确定了不同的大脑系统， 决策和奖励的评估。虽然功能特异性区域的个体化 在这些系统中仍然是认知神经科学的一个活跃和持续的组成部分， 已经致力于阐明它们的相互作用。该项目将研究如何奖励 信息改变了大脑决策系统的功能特性，通过以下几种方式的结合， 功能性磁共振成像（fMRI）、颅内电生理和行为研究。 该项目有四个具体目标。第一，它将确定交付点状货币的后果 在随后的大脑系统的激活下做出决定的奖励。实验将 测试奖励对与之相关的外侧前额叶区域有短暂的抑制作用的假设。 通过比较绩效依赖和绩效独立的影响， 与其他情感刺激的结果一致。其次，它将调查决策者如何 采纳或忽略外部建议，这些建议通过以下方式确认或反驳其先前的决定： 系统地调整推荐在获得奖励方面的预测性的实验 决策结果。分析的关键区域包括额极区、眶额区和扣带回区。第三、 我们将研究决策者如何在两个经常对立的因素之间进行权衡：风险 和奖励在许多情况下，通过延迟判断，人们付出了机会成本（例如，通过放弃 获得丰厚回报的机会），以便做出更准确、更自信的决策。实验 将评估观察员如何管理这些费用，并将岛状和眶额区域作为关键地点。 第四个也是最后一个目标将评估奖励效应的相对时间和空间特异性， 前额系统通过使用颅内电生理学。它的实验将利用 改善电生理学的时间分辨率以表征激活的相对定时 与奖励决定有关的大脑前额叶皮层。他们还将提供新的数据， 眶额皮质的功能，这是一个很难用功能磁共振成像成像的区域。 这些实验将对理解人们如何做决定产生重要影响， 设定目标，并确定刺激之间的偏好。更好地理解这些过程将导致 进一步改善了神经和精神障碍的临床治疗， 执行功能、行为选择或刺激评估的损伤（例如，额叶损伤， 精神分裂症帕金森氏病）。

The efficacy of decision making is often measured by whether or not it leads to rewarding outcomes. Over the past decade, separate research programs have identified separate brain systems that contribute to decision making and to the evaluation of rewards. While the individuation of functionally specific regions within these systems remains an active and ongoing component of cognitive neuroscience, relatively little work has been devoted toward elucidating their interactions. This Project will investigate how reward information alters the functional properties of brain systems for decision making, through a combination of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), intracranial electrophysiological, and behavioral studies. This Project has four specific aims. First, it will determine the consequences of delivery of punctate monetary rewards upon the subsequent activation of brain systems underlying decision making. The experiments will test the hypothesis that rewards have a transient inhibitory effect upon lateral prefrontal regions associated with decision making, through comparison of the effects of performance-dependent and performance-independent rewards with those of other affective stimuli. Second, it will investigate how decision makers incorporate or ignore external recommendations that confirm or refute their prior decisions through experiments that systematically adjust the predictiveness of recommendations in obtaining rewarding decision outcomes. Key regions for the analysis include frontopolar, orbitofrontal and cingulate areas. Third, we will study how decision makers regulate tradeoffs between two factors that are often in opposition: risk and reward. In many situations, by delaying judgment, people pay opportunity costs (e.g., by passing up opportunities for large rewards) in order to make more accurate and confident decisions. The experiments will evaluate how observers manage these costs with insular and orbitofrontal regions targeted as key sites. The fourth and final aim will evaluate the relative timing and spatial specificity of reward effects upon prefrontal systems through the use of intracranial electrophysiology. Its experiments will take advantage of the improved temporal resolution of electrophysiology to characterize the relative timing of activation throughout prefrontal cortex associated with decisions about rewards. They will also provide new data about the function of orbitofrontal cortex, an area often difficult to image using fMRI. These experiments will have important consequences for the understanding of how people make decisions, set goals, and determine preferences among stimuli. A better understanding of these processes will lead to further improvements in clinical remediation of neurological and psychiatric disorders characterized by impairments in executive function, behavioral selection, or stimulus valuation (e.g., frontal lobe damage, schizophrenia. Parkinson's disease).