Kim Jae-Chang, Hellrung Lydia, Nebe Stephan, Tobler Philippe N
Zurich Center for Neuroeconomics, Department of Economics, University of Zurich, Zurich 8006, Switzerland
Zurich Center for Neuroeconomics, Department of Economics, University of Zurich, Zurich 8006, Switzerland.
J Neurosci. 2025 Jun 4;45(23):e2302242025. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2302-24.2025.
The insula processes errors in the prediction of risky, motivationally relevant outcomes and thereby is thought to respond similarly to better-than-predicted and worse-than-predicted outcomes. However, the nature of the encoded risk prediction error signals remained unclear. Moreover, the insula was proposed to preferentially process events and stimuli in the aversive domain, rather than in a domain-general fashion. Here, we aimed to illuminate these issues. In a Pavlovian task, participants ( = 41; 19 women) rated both cues and outcomes, allowing us to quantify not only objective but also trial-specific subjective risk prediction errors. We found preferential coding of subjective risk prediction errors in the anterior insula and adjacent frontal cortex. This contrasted with preferential coding of objective risk prediction errors in the mid-insula. The anterior insula encoded the subjective risk prediction errors not only at the time of outcomes but also at the time of cues, in line with a temporally fine-grained computation of these prediction errors. Cue-induced subjective risk prediction error signals occurred predominantly in the aversive domain, while outcome-induced subjective risk prediction error signals occurred also in the appetitive domain. Domain-specific analyses of risk prediction errors elicited by the preceding outcome at the time of the next cue indicated that the anterior insula updates risk predictions more strongly in the aversive than the appetitive domain. Together, our findings specify the nature of risk prediction errors processed by the anterior insula as subjective, time-resolved, partly domain-general (outcome), and partly domain-preferential (cue), thereby reconciling apparently disparate lines of research.
脑岛在预测有风险的、与动机相关的结果时处理错误，因此被认为对好于预期和差于预期的结果有类似反应。然而，编码的风险预测误差信号的性质仍不清楚。此外，有人提出脑岛优先处理厌恶领域的事件和刺激，而不是以领域通用的方式。在这里，我们旨在阐明这些问题。在一项经典条件反射任务中，参与者（n = 41；19名女性）对线索和结果进行评分，这使我们不仅能够量化客观的，还能量化特定试验的主观风险预测误差。我们发现前脑岛和相邻额叶皮质对主观风险预测误差有优先编码。这与脑岛中部对客观风险预测误差的优先编码形成对比。前脑岛不仅在结果出现时，而且在线索出现时对主观风险预测误差进行编码，这与这些预测误差在时间上的精细计算一致。线索诱发的主观风险预测误差信号主要出现在厌恶领域，而结果诱发的主观风险预测误差信号也出现在奖赏领域。对下一个线索出现时由前一个结果引发的风险预测误差进行的领域特异性分析表明，前脑岛在厌恶领域比在奖赏领域更强烈地更新风险预测。总之，我们的研究结果明确了前脑岛处理的风险预测误差的性质，即主观的、时间分辨的、部分领域通用（结果）和部分领域优先（线索），从而调和了明显不同的研究路线。
