Jo Yong Sang, Pyeon Gyeong Hee, Mizumori Sheri J Y
School of Psychology, Korea University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States.
Front Syst Neurosci. 2024 Dec 4;18:1481585. doi: 10.3389/fnsys.2024.1481585. eCollection 2024.
In many real-life situations, decisions involve temporal delays between actions and their outcomes. During these intervals, waiting is an active process that requires maintaining motivation and anticipating future rewards. This study aimed to explore the role of the midbrain reticular formation (MRF) in delay-based decision-making. We recorded neural activity in the MRF while rats performed delay discounting and reward discrimination tasks, choosing between a smaller, sooner reward and a larger, later reward. Our findings reveal that MRF neurons are integral to maintaining motivation during waiting periods by encoding both the anticipated size and the discounted value of delayed rewards. Furthermore, the inactivation of the MRF led to a significant reduction in the rats' willingness to wait for delayed rewards. These results demonstrate the MRF's function in balancing the trade-offs between reward magnitude and timing, providing insight into the neural mechanisms that support sustained motivation and decision-making over time.
在许多现实生活情境中，决策涉及行动与其结果之间的时间延迟。在这些间隔期间，等待是一个主动过程，需要维持动机并预期未来奖励。本研究旨在探究中脑网状结构（MRF）在基于延迟的决策中的作用。当大鼠执行延迟折扣和奖励辨别任务，在较小、较早的奖励与较大、较晚的奖励之间进行选择时，我们记录了MRF中的神经活动。我们的研究结果表明，MRF神经元通过编码预期奖励大小和延迟奖励的折扣价值，在等待期间维持动机方面不可或缺。此外，MRF失活导致大鼠等待延迟奖励的意愿显著降低。这些结果证明了MRF在平衡奖励大小与时间之间权衡的功能，为支持持续动机和长期决策的神经机制提供了见解。
