-
Psychological Medicine Jul 2022Motivational processes underlie behaviors that enrich the human experience, and impairments in motivation are commonly observed in psychiatric illness. While motivated... (Review)
Review
Motivational processes underlie behaviors that enrich the human experience, and impairments in motivation are commonly observed in psychiatric illness. While motivated behavior is often examined with respect to extrinsic reinforcers, not all actions are driven by reactions to external stimuli; some are driven by 'intrinsic' motivation. Intrinsically motivated behaviors are computationally similar to extrinsically motivated behaviors, in that they strive to maximize reward value and minimize punishment. However, our understanding of the neurocognitive mechanisms that underlie intrinsically motivated behavior remains limited. Dysfunction in intrinsic motivation represents an important trans-diagnostic facet of psychiatric symptomology, but due to a lack of clear consensus, the contribution of intrinsic motivation to psychopathology remains poorly understood. This review aims to provide an overview of the conceptualization, measurement, and neurobiology of intrinsic motivation, providing a framework for understanding its potential contributions to psychopathology and its treatment. Distinctions between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation are discussed, including divergence in the types of associated rewards or outcomes that drive behavioral action and choice. A useful framework for understanding intrinsic motivation, and thus separating it from extrinsic motivation, is developed and suggestions for optimization of paradigms to measure intrinsic motivation are proposed.
Topics: Humans; Motivation; Reward; Punishment; Mental Disorders
PubMed: 35796023
DOI: 10.1017/S0033291722001611 -
Brain Structure & Function Jun 2023The orbitofrontal cortex and amygdala are involved in emotion and in motivation, but the relationship between these functions performed by these brain structures is not... (Review)
Review
The orbitofrontal cortex and amygdala are involved in emotion and in motivation, but the relationship between these functions performed by these brain structures is not clear. To address this, a unified theory of emotion and motivation is described in which motivational states are states in which instrumental goal-directed actions are performed to obtain rewards or avoid punishers, and emotional states are states that are elicited when the reward or punisher is or is not received. This greatly simplifies our understanding of emotion and motivation, for the same set of genes and associated brain systems can define the primary or unlearned rewards and punishers such as sweet taste or pain. Recent evidence on the connectivity of human brain systems involved in emotion and motivation indicates that the orbitofrontal cortex is involved in reward value and experienced emotion with outputs to cortical regions including those involved in language, and is a key brain region involved in depression and the associated changes in motivation. The amygdala has weak effective connectivity back to the cortex in humans, and is implicated in brainstem-mediated responses to stimuli such as freezing and autonomic activity, rather than in declarative emotion. The anterior cingulate cortex is involved in learning actions to obtain rewards, and with the orbitofrontal cortex and ventromedial prefrontal cortex in providing the goals for navigation and in reward-related effects on memory consolidation mediated partly via the cholinergic system.
Topics: Humans; Gyrus Cinguli; Motivation; Emotions; Amygdala; Prefrontal Cortex; Reward
PubMed: 37178232
DOI: 10.1007/s00429-023-02644-9 -
Nature Aug 2022The ability to associate temporally segregated information and assign positive or negative valence to environmental cues is paramount for survival. Studies have shown...
The ability to associate temporally segregated information and assign positive or negative valence to environmental cues is paramount for survival. Studies have shown that different projections from the basolateral amygdala (BLA) are potentiated following reward or punishment learning. However, we do not yet understand how valence-specific information is routed to the BLA neurons with the appropriate downstream projections, nor do we understand how to reconcile the sub-second timescales of synaptic plasticity with the longer timescales separating the predictive cues from their outcomes. Here we demonstrate that neurotensin (NT)-expressing neurons in the paraventricular nucleus of the thalamus (PVT) projecting to the BLA (PVT-BLA:NT) mediate valence assignment by exerting NT concentration-dependent modulation in BLA during associative learning. We found that optogenetic activation of the PVT-BLA:NT projection promotes reward learning, whereas PVT-BLA projection-specific knockout of the NT gene (Nts) augments punishment learning. Using genetically encoded calcium and NT sensors, we further revealed that both calcium dynamics within the PVT-BLA:NT projection and NT concentrations in the BLA are enhanced after reward learning and reduced after punishment learning. Finally, we showed that CRISPR-mediated knockout of the Nts gene in the PVT-BLA pathway blunts BLA neural dynamics and attenuates the preference for active behavioural strategies to reward and punishment predictive cues. In sum, we have identified NT as a neuropeptide that signals valence in the BLA, and showed that NT is a critical neuromodulator that orchestrates positive and negative valence assignment in amygdala neurons by extending valence-specific plasticity to behaviourally relevant timescales.
Topics: Basolateral Nuclear Complex; Calcium; Cues; Learning; Neural Pathways; Neuronal Plasticity; Neurotensin; Optogenetics; Punishment; Reward; Thalamic Nuclei
PubMed: 35859170
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04964-y -
Scientific Reports Jan 2023A fundamental question in social and biological sciences is whether self-governance is possible when individual and collective interests are in conflict. Free riding...
A fundamental question in social and biological sciences is whether self-governance is possible when individual and collective interests are in conflict. Free riding poses a major challenge to self-governance, and a prominent solution to this challenge has been altruistic punishment. However, this solution is ineffective when counter-punishments are possible and when social interactions are noisy. We set out to address these shortcomings, motivated by the fact that most people behave like conditional cooperators-individuals willing to cooperate if a critical number of others do so. In our evolutionary model, the population contains heterogeneous conditional cooperators whose decisions depend on past cooperation levels. The population plays a repeated public goods game in a moderately noisy environment where individuals can occasionally commit mistakes in their cooperative decisions and in their imitation of the role models' strategies. We show that, under moderate levels of noise, injecting a few altruists into the population triggers positive reciprocity among conditional cooperators, thereby providing a novel mechanism to establish stable cooperation. More broadly, our findings indicate that self-governance is possible while avoiding the detrimental effects of punishment, and suggest that society should focus on creating a critical amount of trust to harness the conditional nature of its members.
Topics: Humans; Cooperative Behavior; Punishment; Game Theory; Altruism; Social Interaction
PubMed: 36681708
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-28372-y -
Law and Philosophy 2022Lately it has become a commonplace to complain about the injustice of mass incarceration. I share the sentiment that this phenomenon has been an injustice. But it also...
Lately it has become a commonplace to complain about the injustice of mass incarceration. I share the sentiment that this phenomenon has been an injustice. But it also has become orthodoxy to allege that the acceptance of a retributive penal philosophy has been one of the chief factors that has brought about mass incarceration in the first place. As a self-proclaimed retributivist, I find these allegations to be troubling and unwarranted. The point of this paper is to take steps to rebut them. I begin by making four conceptual points about retributivism. If I am correct, retributivism comes in countless flavors, and the particular variety to which I am most attracted can be applied to show why some punishments should be less severe than those presently imposed. Next I argue that many persons deserve less punishment than our legal system currently inflicts. Reflection about whether perpetrators should be afforded a complete or partial defense reveals retributivism to be less punitive than conventional wisdom would suggest.
PubMed: 34511672
DOI: 10.1007/s10982-021-09422-w -
Behavioural Processes Mar 2023Learning to stop responding is an important process that allows behavior to adapt to a changing and variable environment. This article reviews recent research in this... (Review)
Review
Learning to stop responding is an important process that allows behavior to adapt to a changing and variable environment. This article reviews recent research in this laboratory and others that has studied how animals learn to stop responding in operant extinction, punishment, and feature-negative learning. Extinction and punishment are shown to be similar in two fundamental ways. First, the response-suppressing effects of both are highly context-specific. Second, the response-suppressing effects of both can be remarkably response-specific: Inhibition of one response transfers little to other responses. Learning to inhibit the response so specifically may result from the correction of "response error," the difference between the level of responding and what the current reinforcer supports. In contrast, the inhibition of responding that develops in feature-negative learning, where the response is reinforced during one discriminative stimulus (A) but not in a compound of A and stimulus B, is less response-specific: The inhibition of responding by stimulus B transfers and inhibits a second response, especially if the second response has itself been inhibited before. The results thus indicate both response-specific and response-general forms of behavioral inhibition. One possibility is that response-specific inhibition is learned when the circumstances encourage the organism to pay attention to the response-to what it is actually doing-as behavioral suppression is learned.
Topics: Animals; Conditioning, Operant; Extinction, Psychological; Learning; Punishment; Inhibition, Psychological
PubMed: 36702436
DOI: 10.1016/j.beproc.2023.104830 -
Evolutionary Human Sciences 2019Humans are outstanding in their ability to cooperate with unrelated individuals, and punishment - paying a cost to harm others - is thought to be a key supporting... (Review)
Review
Humans are outstanding in their ability to cooperate with unrelated individuals, and punishment - paying a cost to harm others - is thought to be a key supporting mechanism. According to this view, cooperators punish defectors, who respond by behaving more cooperatively in future interactions. However, a synthesis of the evidence from laboratory and real-world settings casts serious doubts on the assumption that the sole function of punishment is to convert cheating individuals into cooperators. Instead, punishment often prompts retaliation and punishment decisions frequently stem from competitive, rather than deterrent motives. Punishment decisions often reflect the desire to equalise or elevate payoffs relative to targets, rather than the desire to enact revenge for harm received or to deter cheats from reoffending in future. We therefore suggest that punishment also serves a competitive function, where what looks like spiteful behaviour actually allows punishers to equalise or elevate their own payoffs and/or status relative to targets independently of any change in the target's behaviour. Institutions that reduce or remove the possibility that punishers are motivated by relative payoff or status concerns might offer a way to harness these competitive motives and render punishment more effective at restoring cooperation.
PubMed: 37588410
DOI: 10.1017/ehs.2019.12 -
Trends in Cognitive Sciences Jun 2023During social interactions in daily life, people possess imperfect knowledge of their interdependence (i.e., how behaviors affect each person's outcomes), and what... (Review)
Review
During social interactions in daily life, people possess imperfect knowledge of their interdependence (i.e., how behaviors affect each person's outcomes), and what people infer about their interdependence can shape their behaviors. We review theory and research that suggests people can infer their interdependence with others along several dimensions, including mutual dependence, power, and corresponding-versus-conflicting interests. We discuss how perceptions of interdependence affect how people cooperate and punish others' defection in everyday life. We propose that people understand their interdependence with others through knowledge of the action space, cues during social interactions (e.g., partner behaviors), and priors based on experience. Finally, we describe how learning interdependence could occur through domain-specific and domain-general mechanisms.
Topics: Humans; Cooperative Behavior; Learning; Cues
PubMed: 37055313
DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2023.03.003 -
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews Feb 2022Aversive motivation plays a prominent role in driving individuals to exert cognitive control. However, the complexity of behavioral responses attributed to aversive... (Review)
Review
Aversive motivation plays a prominent role in driving individuals to exert cognitive control. However, the complexity of behavioral responses attributed to aversive incentives creates significant challenges for developing a clear understanding of the neural mechanisms of this motivation-control interaction. We review the animal learning, systems neuroscience, and computational literatures to highlight the importance of experimental paradigms that incorporate both motivational context manipulations and mixed motivational components (e.g., bundling of appetitive and aversive incentives). Specifically, we postulate that to understand aversive incentive effects on cognitive control allocation, a critical contextual factor is whether such incentives are associated with negative reinforcement or punishment. We further illustrate how the inclusion of mixed motivational components in experimental paradigms enables increased precision in the measurement of aversive influences on cognitive control. A sharpened experimental and theoretical focus regarding the manipulation and assessment of distinct motivational dimensions promises to advance understanding of the neural, monoaminergic, and computational mechanisms that underlie the interaction of motivation and cognitive control.
Topics: Animals; Cognition; Humans; Motivation; Punishment; Reinforcement, Psychology; Reward
PubMed: 34910931
DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2021.12.016