Wang Shuai, Hu Shan-Hu, Shi Yi, Li Bao-Ming
Institute of Neurobiology & State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology, Institutes of Brain Science, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200032, China.
Center for Neuropsychiatric Diseases, Institute of Life Science, Nanchang University, Nanchang, 330031, China.
Learn Behav. 2017 Mar;45(1):89-99. doi: 10.3758/s13420-016-0243-0.
It has been shown that the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and its dopamine system are crucial for decision making that requires physical/emotional effort, but not for all forms of cost-benefit decision making. Previous studies had mostly employed behavioral tasks with two competing cost-reward options that were preset by the experimenters. However, few studies have been conducted using scenarios in which the subjects have full control over the energy/time expenditure required to obtain a proportional reward. Here, we assessed the roles of the ACC and its dopamine system in cost-benefit decision making by utilizing a "do more get more" (DMGM) task and a time-reward trade-off (TRTO) task, wherein the animals were able to self-determine how much effort or time to expend at a nosepoke operandum for a proportional reward. Our results showed that (1) ACC inactivation severely impaired DMGM task performance, with a reduction in the rate of correct responses and a decrease in the effort expended, but did not affect the TRTO task; and (2) blocking ACC D2 receptors had no impact on DMGM task performance in the baseline cost-benefit scenario, but it significantly reduced the attempts to invest increased effort for a large reward when the benefit-cost ratio was reduced by half. In contrast, blocking ACC D1 receptors had no effect on DMGM task performance. These findings suggest that the ACC is required for self-paced effort-based but not for time-reward trade-off decision making. Furthermore, ACC dopamine D2 but not D1 receptors are involved in DMGM decision making.
研究表明，前扣带回皮质（ACC）及其多巴胺系统对于需要体力/情感努力的决策至关重要，但并非对所有形式的成本效益决策都如此。以往的研究大多采用由实验者预先设定的两种相互竞争的成本-奖励选项的行为任务。然而，很少有研究使用受试者能够完全控制获得相应奖励所需的能量/时间消耗的情景。在这里，我们通过利用“多做多得”（DMGM）任务和时间-奖励权衡（TRTO）任务来评估ACC及其多巴胺系统在成本效益决策中的作用，在这些任务中，动物能够自行决定在鼻触操作中为获得相应奖励付出多少努力或时间。我们的结果表明：（1）ACC失活严重损害了DMGM任务的表现，正确反应率降低且付出的努力减少，但不影响TRTO任务；（2）在基线成本效益情景下，阻断ACC D2受体对DMGM任务表现没有影响，但当效益-成本比减半时，它显著减少了为获得大奖励而增加努力的尝试。相比之下，阻断ACC D1受体对DMGM任务表现没有影响。这些发现表明，ACC对于基于自我节奏的努力型决策是必需的，但对于时间-奖励权衡决策则不是。此外，ACC多巴胺D2受体而非D1受体参与了DMGM决策。
