Tisdall Loreen, MacNiven Kelly, Leong Josiah, Frey Renato, Rieskamp Jörg, Hertwig Ralph, Knutson Brian, Mata Rui
Center for Cognitive and Decision Sciences, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, United States.
Imaging Neurosci (Camb). 2024 Nov 5;2. doi: 10.1162/imag_a_00344. eCollection 2024.
Functional responses in the Nucleus Accumbens (NAcc) to risk- and reward-relatedcues can predict real-life risk-taking behavior. Since NAcc activity depends onneurotransmission from connected brain regions, projections to the NAcc may alsopredict risk preference. To quantify risk preference, we employed latentvariables previously derived in a comprehensive, independent study examining thepsychometric structure of risk preference, which yielded a general riskpreference factor as well as several specific factors, including a factorcapturing impulsivity. Informed by previous work, we preregistered a set ofhypotheses concerning the association between different risk preference factorsand fractional anisotropy (or FA, which is sensitive to fiber coherence) forprojections to the NAcc from Medial PreFrontal Cortex (MPFC), Anterior Insula,Amygdala, and an inferior tract from the Ventral Tegmental Area (iVTA). Wetested our hypotheses in a community sample of 125 healthy human adults. Aspredicted, bilateral iVTA-NAcc tract FA showed a negative correlation with apsychometric factor that captured impulsivity, generalizing findings from priorresearch. Also as predicted, FA of the bilateral Amygdala-NAcc tract waspositively associated with the impulsivity factor. Contrary to predictions,however, we observed no robust associations between the general risk preferencefactor and FA for projections from bilateral MPFC, right Anterior Insula, orbilateral Amygdala to the NAcc. Notably, exploratory unilateral analysesrevealed an association between the general risk preference factor and leftMPFC-NAcc tract FA. Taken together, these findings suggest that impulse controlas a facet of risk preference maps onto specific neurobiological targets, whilemore general facets of risk preference may be supported by structural propertiesof lateral fronto-striatal projections. Although the exact associated functionalmechanisms remain to be fully clarified, conNAcctomic approaches like the onepresented here could pave the way for further research into the physiologicalfoundations of risk preference and related constructs.
伏隔核（NAcc）对风险和奖励相关线索的功能反应可以预测现实生活中的冒险行为。由于NAcc的活动依赖于来自相连脑区的神经传递，投射到NAcc的神经纤维也可能预测风险偏好。为了量化风险偏好，我们采用了先前在一项全面、独立的研究中得出的潜在变量，该研究考察了风险偏好的心理测量结构，得出了一个一般风险偏好因子以及几个特定因子，包括一个捕捉冲动性的因子。基于先前的研究工作，我们预先登记了一组关于不同风险偏好因子与从内侧前额叶皮质（MPFC）、前岛叶、杏仁核以及腹侧被盖区的一条下行通路（iVTA）投射到NAcc的分数各向异性（或FA，对纤维连贯性敏感）之间关联的假设。我们在125名健康成年人的社区样本中检验了我们的假设。正如预测的那样，双侧iVTA - NAcc通路的FA与一个捕捉冲动性的心理测量因子呈负相关，这推广了先前研究的结果。同样如预测的那样，双侧杏仁核 - NAcc通路的FA与冲动性因子呈正相关。然而，与预测相反，我们没有观察到双侧MPFC、右侧前岛叶或双侧杏仁核投射到NAcc的FA与一般风险偏好因子之间有显著关联。值得注意的是，探索性的单侧分析揭示了一般风险偏好因子与左侧MPFC - NAcc通路的FA之间存在关联。综上所述，这些发现表明，作为风险偏好一个方面的冲动控制映射到特定的神经生物学靶点，而风险偏好的更一般方面可能由外侧额 - 纹状体投射的结构特性支持。尽管确切的相关功能机制仍有待充分阐明，但像本文所展示的这种连接组学方法可能为进一步研究风险偏好及相关结构的生理基础铺平道路。
