Wahab Mejda, Mead Nicole L, Desmercieres Stevenson, Lardeux Virginie, Dugast Emilie, Baumeister Roy F, Solinas Marcello
Université de Poitiers, INSERM, U1084, Laboratoire de Neurosciences Expérimentales et Cliniques, Poitiers 86073, France.
Schulich School of Business, York University, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada.
PNAS Nexus. 2024 Oct 22;3(10):pgae432. doi: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae432. eCollection 2024 Oct.
An important body of literature suggests that exerting intense cognitive effort causes mental fatigue and can lead to unhealthy behaviors such as indulging in high-calorie food and taking drugs. Whereas this effect has been mostly explained in terms of weakening cognitive control, cognitive effort may also bias behavioral choices by amplifying the hedonic and emotional impact of rewards. We report parallel findings with animals and humans supporting this hypothesis. In rats, exerting cognitive effort immediately before access to cocaine self-administration significantly increased drug intake. In addition, exerting cognitive effort increased the psychostimulant effect of cocaine. The effects of cognitive effort on addiction-related behaviors were eliminated and even reversed when animals could rest in their home-cage for 2-4 h before access to cocaine self-administration. Among humans, we found that expending cognitive effort increased consumption of tasty (but unhealthy) food by increasing the hedonic enjoyment of consuming the food. In addition, the effects were specific for emotionally relevant stimuli (i.e. food rewards) and did not generalize to judgment about neutral objects. Altogether these data suggest that intense cognitive effort can increase the perceived intensity of rewards and lead to their overconsumption. This effect may contribute to bad decision making induced by excessive cognitive effort and make people more vulnerable to indulge in unhealthy behaviors such as use of addictive drugs.
大量重要文献表明，付出高强度认知努力会导致精神疲劳，并可能引发不健康行为，如沉溺于高热量食物和吸毒。虽然这种影响大多从认知控制减弱的角度进行了解释，但认知努力也可能通过放大奖励的享乐和情感影响来使行为选择产生偏差。我们报告了在动物和人类身上的平行研究结果，支持这一假设。在大鼠中，在可自行摄入可卡因之前立即付出认知努力，会显著增加药物摄入量。此外，付出认知努力会增强可卡因的精神刺激作用。当动物在可自行摄入可卡因之前能在其笼舍中休息2至4小时时，认知努力对成瘾相关行为的影响就会消除，甚至会逆转。在人类中，我们发现付出认知努力会通过增加对食物享乐的喜爱程度，从而增加对美味（但不健康）食物的消费。此外，这些影响对情感相关刺激（即食物奖励）具有特异性，不会推广到对中性物体的判断上。总之，这些数据表明，高强度认知努力会增加奖励的感知强度，并导致过度消费。这种影响可能会导致因过度认知努力而产生的糟糕决策，并使人们更容易沉溺于不健康行为，如使用成瘾性药物。
