Article
Behavioral Sciences
Fabian Grabenhorst, Wolfram Schultz
Summary: The amygdala, traditionally linked to aversive processing, is now recognized as a crucial component in processing rewards and playing a role in decision-making, especially in social contexts. Single amygdala neurons encode reward value signals and contribute to economic decision processes, suggesting a locally implemented decision mechanism within primate amygdala. This understanding of the role of amygdala neurons in decision-making could help identify vulnerabilities for amygdala dysfunction in human social cognition and mental health conditions.
BEHAVIOURAL BRAIN RESEARCH
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Monique L. Smith, Naoyuki Asada, Robert C. Malenka
Summary: The study showed that mice can transfer experiences of pain and analgesia during social interactions, with the anterior cingulate cortex and its projections to the nucleus accumbens playing a crucial role. However, the social transfer of fear depends on the connections between the anterior cingulate cortex and the basolateral amygdala, not the ACC -> NAc circuit.
Article
Neurosciences
Jia-ni Wang, Li-rong Tang, Wei-hua Li, Xin-yu Zhang, Xiao Shao, Ping-ping Wu, Ze-mei Yang, Guo-wei Wu, Qian Chen, Zheng Wang, Peng Zhang, Zhan-jiang Li, Zhenchang Wang
Summary: This study investigated alterations in regional neural activity in patients with bulimia nervosa (BN) during resting state by using fALFF analysis and whole-brain functional connectivity (FC). The results showed that the left insula and bilateral inferior parietal lobule (IPL) had altered FC with brain regions related to reward, emotion, cognition, memory, smell/taste, and vision. These findings may have influenced restrained eating behavior and provide potential targets for neuropsychological treatment in patients with BN.
FRONTIERS IN NEUROSCIENCE
(2022)
Review
Biology
George B. B. Stefano, Richard M. M. Kream, Tobias Esch
Summary: Morphine has a critical regulatory function in both simple and complex plant species, and dopamine plays a key role in the morphine biosynthetic pathway. The evolution of catecholamine signaling pathways in animal species depends on the acquisition of a mobile lifestyle and motivationally driven responses.
Article
Psychology, Social
Leor M. Hackel, Peter Mende-Siedlecki, Siri Loken, David M. Amodio
Summary: This study explores how humans make decisions in different situations through inferring trait attributes from social interactions. The results suggest that people tend to choose partners based on context-specific traits rather than global traits or material rewards. Additionally, people are able to generalize trait knowledge from past contexts to new situations. In contrast, reward-based learning shows weaker context-sensitivity and generalization.
JOURNAL OF PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Psychology, Experimental
Hyeji J. Cho, Leor M. Hackel
Summary: Both social cognition and rewarding outcomes shape people's affect, partner choice, and prosocial behavior. Partner's acceptance intentions and acceptance outcomes both have an impact on people's choices and feelings.
JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY-GENERAL
(2022)
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Todd Vogel, Patricia L. Lockwood
Summary: Norms are social rules that determine what is allowed or forbidden. The debate in norm psychology focuses on whether these rules come from specific, genetically inherited mechanisms or more general mechanisms that apply to various nonnorm processes. Assessing and testing these domain-specific and domain-general processes at different levels of explanation is important. Cognitive neuroscience research provides evidence that social and nonsocial learning can be separated at different levels. This multilevel framework allows for the evaluation of cultural evolution theories about norm processing against specific genetic alternatives.
PERSPECTIVES ON PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Neurosciences
Julia Cox, Adelaide R. Minerva, Weston T. Fleming, Christopher A. Zimmerman, Cameron Hayes, Samuel Zorowitz, Akhil Bandi, Sharon Ornelas, Brenna McMannon, Nathan F. Parker, Ilana B. Witten
Summary: Emerging evidence suggests that there are sex differences in decision-making behavior, but the neural substrates underlying these differences are not well understood. This study demonstrates that in mice, the motivation to engage in a value-based decision-making task is modulated more strongly by action value in females than in males. The anterior cingulate cortex neurons projecting to the dorsomedial striatum contribute to this sex difference.
NATURE NEUROSCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Rosa Hendijani, Piers Steel
Summary: This study examines the effect of reward salience and choice on overall motivation and performance in a controlling context, and finds that salient reward improves overall motivation and performance compared to non-salient and no-reward conditions.
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Psychiatry
Elena Kozakevich Arbel, Simone G. Shamay-Tsoory, Uri Hertz
Summary: Empathy allows individuals to respond to the emotions of others, and the ability to learn and adjust empathetic responses based on feedback is essential for adaptive empathy. Research shows that learning from social feedback can enhance the accuracy of empathetic responses, with a correlation between adaptive empathy and cognitive empathy. This study provides a lab-based model for studying adaptive empathy and highlights the contribution of learning theory to understanding the dynamic nature of empathy.
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHIATRY
(2021)
Review
Biochemical Research Methods
Shangbo Ning, Huiwen Wang, Chen Zeng, Yunjie Zhao
Summary: Cyclin-dependent kinase (Cdk) proteins are important in cell cycle progression and can be targeted for therapy against diseases like cancer. Current Cdk inhibitors lack specificity and often have side effects, making it necessary to identify and study non-catalytic pockets that can interfere with kinase activity. This article summarizes the existing Cdk pockets and their selectivity, introduces a network-based pocket prediction approach called NetPocket, and discusses potential future directions and challenges.
BRIEFINGS IN BIOINFORMATICS
(2022)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
A. B. Losecaat Vermeer, A. Muth, D. Terenzi, S. Q. Park
Summary: Curiosity and information-seeking are crucial for maintaining well-being and mood during the COVID-19 pandemic. Research found that individuals were more motivated to seek positive information and that both trait curiosity and information-seeking predicted higher well-being, mediated by reduced loneliness. Additionally, diet played a role in this relationship, as individuals with lower trait curiosity consumed more tyrosine-rich foods, and high sugar intake was associated with higher anxiety, particularly in individuals with lower trait curiosity.
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
(2022)
Article
Economics
Hongxing Ding, Hai Yang, Hongli Xu, Ting Li
Summary: Based on the status quo-dependent route choice model in Xu et al. (2017), this study integrates the model into traffic assignment modeling and establishes a Status quo-dependent User Equilibrium (SDUE) model. The SDUE model considers cognitive limitations, satisficing behavior, inertial behavior, and variation in value of time (VOTs) in route choice behavior. The study also demonstrates that equilibrium solutions from previous UE models can be included in the SDUE solution set by varying VOTs among users and scenarios.
TRANSPORTATION RESEARCH PART B-METHODOLOGICAL
(2023)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Koutaro Ould Maeno, Cyril Piou, Sidi Ould Ely, Sid'Ahmed Ould Mohamed, Mohamed El Hacen Jaavar, Said Ghaout, Mohamed Abdallahi Ould Babah Ebbe
Summary: Male mating harassment can be reduced in dense populations of desert locusts through behavioral adaptations, where non-gravid females and males live separately while males wait for gravid females at lekking sites to mate. In low-density populations, solitarious locusts display balanced sex ratios and females mate regardless of ovarian state. This suggests that group separation based on sex biases behavior to minimize male mating harassment and competition.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(2021)
Article
Psychology, Clinical
Qiang Shen, Shiguang Fu, Xiaoying Jiang, Xiaoyu Huang, Doudou Lin, Qingyan Xiao, Sitti Khadijah, Yaping Yan, Xiaoxing Xiong, Jia Jin, Richard P. Ebstein, Ting Xu, Yiquan Wang, Jun Feng
Summary: This study investigates the differences in learning behavior between adolescent depressive patients and healthy controls using an instrumental learning task. The results show that depressive patients perform worse, have slower learning rates, and exhibit pessimistic biases and counterfactual outcome biases. These biases are also linked with the severity of depressive symptoms.
PSYCHOLOGICAL MEDICINE
(2023)
Article
Neurosciences
Mehran Spitmaan, Emily Chu, Alireza Soltani
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2019)
Review
Neurosciences
Alireza Soltani, Alicia Izquierdo
NATURE REVIEWS NEUROSCIENCE
(2019)
Article
Psychology, Biological
Shiva Farashahi, Christopher H. Donahue, Benjamin Y. Hayden, Daeyeol Lee, Alireza Soltani
NATURE HUMAN BEHAVIOUR
(2019)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
A. Stolyarova, M. Rakhshan, E. E. Hart, T. J. O'Dell, M. A. K. Peters, H. Lau, A. Soltani, A. Izquierdo
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
(2019)
Article
Biochemical Research Methods
Mehran Spitmaan, Oihane Horno, Emily Chu, Alireza Soltani
PLOS COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGY
(2019)
Article
Neurosciences
Mohsen Rakhshan, Vivian Lee, Emily Chu, Lauren Harris, Lillian Laiks, Peyman Khorsand, Alireza Soltani
JOURNAL OF COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE
(2020)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Mehran Spitmaan, Hyojung Seo, Daeyeol Lee, Alireza Soltani
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(2020)
Article
Neurosciences
Alireza Soltani, Mohsen Rakhshan, Robert J. Schafer, Brittany E. Burrows, Tirin Moore
Summary: In a novel paradigm, researchers measured the effects of reward outcomes and expected reward on target selection and sensitivity to visual motion in primates. They found that while reward influenced both choice and sensitivity to visual motion, there were differences in how it affected these processes.
JOURNAL OF COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Carl Harris, Claudia Aguirre, Saisriya Kolli, Kanak Das, Alicia Izquierdo, Alireza Soltani
Summary: The study revealed differences between male and female rats in a visual probabilistic discrimination and reversal learning paradigm, including differences in latency to choose the better option and win-stay strategies. Additionally, the study found an impact of reward probability on behavioral performance.
BEHAVIORAL NEUROSCIENCE
(2021)
Review
Neurosciences
Alireza Soltani, Etienne Koechlin
Summary: This article highlights the importance of the prefrontal cortex in enabling adaptive behavior in the face of uncertainty and constant change in the real world. Adaptive behavior relies on specific interactions between multiple systems, including selective models, predictive models, and contextual models. The PFC combines internal models to drive behavior and constantly evaluates their reliability in predicting external contingencies to adjust or create new task sets.
NEUROPSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Shiva Farashahi, Alireza Soltani
Summary: Real-world learning is challenging due to the association of reward with multiple features of choice options. The study demonstrates that humans can learn complex learning strategies and reveals the underlying computational and neural mechanisms.
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Ethan Trepka, Mehran Spitmaan, Bilal A. Bari, Vincent D. Costa, Jeremiah Y. Cohen, Alireza Soltani
Summary: The authors proposed metrics based on information theory to predict global behavioral rules of animal choices based on reward feedback. These metrics explained 50% and 41% of variance in matching behavior in mice and monkeys, respectively, and were used to develop more accurate models of choice. Overall, the entropy-based metrics provide a model-free tool to predict adaptive choice behavior and reveal underlying neural mechanisms.
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
(2021)
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Alireza Soltani, John D. Murray, Hyojung Seo, Daeyeol Lee
Summary: The human brain has evolved to integrate various types of information on multiple timescales. Recent research has shown that the integration of sensory and reward signals is influenced by the temporal properties of the environment. Future studies need to investigate how neural computations at multiple timescales are adjusted to influence behavior flexibly.
CURRENT OPINION IN BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
(2021)
Letter
Neurosciences
Fuat Balci, Suliann Ben Hamed, Thomas Boraud, Sebastien Bouret, Thomas Brochier., Cedric Brun., Jeremiah Y. Cohen, Etienne Coutureau, Marc Deffains, Valerie Doyere, Georgia G. Gregoriou, J. Alexander Heimel, Bjorg Elisabeth Kilavik, Daeyeol Lee, Eric C. Leuthardt, Zachary F. Mainen, Mackenzie Mathis, Ilya E. Monosov, Jeremie Naude, Amy L. Orsborn, Camillo Padoa-Schioppa, Emmanuel Procyk, Bernardo Sabatini, Jerome Sallet, Carmen Sandi, Jeffrey D. Schall, Alireza Soltani, Karel Svoboda, Charles R. E. Wilson, Jan Zimmermann
Article
Psychology, Experimental
Shiva Farashahi, Jane Xu, Shih-Wei Wu, Alireza Soltani