Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroinformatics Unit, D'Or Institute for Research and Education (IDOR), Rio de Janeiro 22281-100, Brazil.
Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroinformatics Unit, D'Or Institute for Research and Education (IDOR), Rio de Janeiro 22281-100, Brazil.
Neuroimage. 2021 Nov;243:118474. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118474. Epub 2021 Aug 15.
Humans are intrinsically motivated to bond with others. The ability to experience affiliative emotions (such as affection/tenderness, sexual attraction, and admiration/awe) may incentivize and promote these affiliative bonds. Here, we interrogate the role of the critical reward circuitry, especially the Nucleus Accumbens (NAcc) and the septo-hypothalamic region, in the anticipation of and response to affiliative rewards using a novel incentive delay task. During Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI), participants (n = 23 healthy humans; 14 female) anticipated and watched videos involving affiliative (tenderness, erotic desire, and awe) and nonaffiliative (i.e., food) rewards, as well as neutral scenes. On the one hand, anticipation of both affiliative and nonaffiliative rewards increased activity in the NAcc, anterior insula, and supplementary motor cortex, but activity in the amygdala and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) increased in response to reward outcomes. On the other hand, affiliative rewards more specifically increased activity in the septo-hypothalamic area. Moreover, NAcc activity during anticipation correlated with positive arousal for all rewards, whereas septo-hypothalamic activity during the outcome correlated with positive arousal and motivation for subsequent re-exposure only for affiliative rewards. Together, these findings implicate a general appetitive response in the NAcc to different types of rewards but suggests a more specific response in the septo-hypothalamic region in response to affiliative rewards outcomes. This work also presents a new task for distinguishing between neural responses to affiliative and non-affiliative rewards.
人类天生就有与他人建立联系的动机。体验亲和情感（如喜爱/温柔、性吸引和钦佩/敬畏）的能力可能会激励和促进这些亲和关系。在这里，我们使用一种新的激励延迟任务来探究关键奖励回路（尤其是伏隔核和隔下丘脑区域）在期待和响应亲和奖励中的作用。在功能磁共振成像（FMRI）期间，参与者（n=23 名健康人类；14 名女性）期待并观看了涉及亲和（温柔、性欲和敬畏）和非亲和（即食物）奖励以及中性场景的视频。一方面，对亲和和非亲和奖励的期待都会增加伏隔核、前岛叶和辅助运动皮层的活动，但奖励结果会增加杏仁核和腹内侧前额叶皮层（vmPFC）的活动。另一方面，亲和奖励更具体地增加了隔下丘脑区域的活动。此外，在期待期间，伏隔核的活动与所有奖励的积极唤醒相关，而在结果期间，隔下丘脑的活动与亲和奖励的积极唤醒和后续重新暴露的动机相关。总的来说，这些发现表明，不同类型的奖励在伏隔核中会引起一般的食欲反应，但在隔下丘脑区域对亲和奖励结果的反应更为具体。这项工作还提出了一个新的任务，可以区分亲和和非亲和奖励的神经反应。
