Skałbania Jakub, Tanajewski Łukasz, Furtak Marcin, Hare Todd A, Wypych Marek
Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland.
Department of Economics, Kozminski University, Jagiellońska 57, 03-301, Warsaw, Poland.
Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2025 Apr;25(2):387-401. doi: 10.3758/s13415-024-01231-7. Epub 2024 Oct 8.
Recent studies have shown that spontaneous pre-stimulus fluctuations in brain activity affect higher-order cognitive processes, including risky decision-making, cognitive flexibility, and aesthetic judgments. However, there is currently no direct evidence to suggest that pre-choice activity influences value-based decisions that require self-control. We examined the impact of fluctuations in pre-choice activity in key regions of the reward system on self-control in food choice. In the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner, 49 participants made 120 food choices that required self-control in high and low working memory load conditions. The task was designed to ensure that participants were cognitively engaged and not thinking about upcoming choices. We defined self-control success as choosing a food item that was healthier over one that was tastier. The brain regions of interest (ROIs) were the ventral tegmental area (VTA), putamen, nucleus accumbens (NAc), and caudate nucleus. For each participant and condition, we calculated the mean activity in the 3-s interval preceding the presentation of food stimuli in successful and failed self-control trials. These activities were then used as predictors of self-control success in a fixed-effects logistic regression model. The results indicate that increased pre-choice VTA activity was linked to a higher probability of self-control success in a subsequent food-choice task within the low-load condition, but not in the high-load condition. We posit that pre-choice fluctuations in VTA activity change the reference point for immediate (taste) reward evaluation, which may explain our finding. This suggests that the neural context of decisions may be a key factor influencing human behavior.
最近的研究表明，大脑活动中自发的刺激前波动会影响高阶认知过程，包括风险决策、认知灵活性和审美判断。然而，目前尚无直接证据表明选择前的活动会影响需要自我控制的基于价值的决策。我们研究了奖励系统关键区域中选择前活动的波动对食物选择中自我控制的影响。在功能磁共振成像（fMRI）扫描仪中，49名参与者在高工作记忆负荷和低工作记忆负荷条件下做出了120次需要自我控制的食物选择。该任务旨在确保参与者在认知上投入其中，而不是思考即将到来的选择。我们将自我控制成功定义为选择更健康的食物而非更美味的食物。感兴趣的脑区（ROI）包括腹侧被盖区（VTA）、壳核、伏隔核（NAc）和尾状核。对于每位参与者和每种条件，我们计算了在成功和失败的自我控制试验中，食物刺激呈现前3秒间隔内的平均活动。然后，这些活动被用作固定效应逻辑回归模型中自我控制成功的预测指标。结果表明，在低负荷条件下，选择前VTA活动的增加与随后食物选择任务中自我控制成功的较高概率相关，但在高负荷条件下并非如此。我们认为，VTA活动中选择前的波动会改变即时（味觉）奖励评估的参考点，这可能解释了我们的发现。这表明决策的神经背景可能是影响人类行为的关键因素。
