Journal
SOCIAL COGNITIVE AND AFFECTIVE NEUROSCIENCE
Volume 4, Issue 4, Pages 409-416Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsp031
Keywords
context; reference points; reward; nucleus accumbens; fMRI
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Funding
- Stanford School of Humanities & Sciences Vice Provost of Graduate Education
- National Institute of Mental Health [5T32MH020006-10]
- National Science Foundation [0748915]
- Division Of Behavioral and Cognitive Sci
- Direct For Social, Behav & Economic Scie [0748915] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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A reward or punishment can seem better or worse depending on what else might have happened. Little is known, however, about how neural representations of an anticipated incentive might be influenced by the available alternatives. We used event-related FMRI to investigate the activation in the nucleus accumbens (NAcc), while we varied the available alternative incentives in a monetary incentive delay task. Some task blocks included only uncertain gains and losses; others included the same uncertain gains and losses intermixed with certain gains and losses. The availability of certain gains and losses increased NAcc activation for uncertain losses and decreased the difference between uncertain gains and losses. We suggest that this pattern of activation can result from reference point changes across blocks, and that the worst available loss may serve as an important anchor for NAcc activation. These findings imply that NAcc activation represents anticipated incentive value relative to the current context of available alternative gains and losses.
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