scholarly journals Psychiatric symptoms influence reward‐seeking and loss‐avoidance decision‐making through common and distinct computational processes

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shinsuke Suzuki ◽  
Yuichi Yamashita ◽  
Kentaro Katahira
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Psychiatric Symptoms ◽  
Reward Seeking ◽  
Loss Avoidance ◽  
Computational Processes

scholarly journals Motivational system modulates brain responses during exploratory decision-making

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chia-Wei Li ◽  
Carol Yeh-Yun Lin ◽  
Ting-Ting Chang ◽  
Nai-Shing Yen ◽  
Danchi Tan
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
High Performance ◽  
Behavioral Activation ◽  
Motivational Orientation ◽  
Performance Group ◽  
Reward Seeking ◽  
Brain Responses ◽  
Low Performance ◽  
Risk Choice ◽  
The Brain

AbstractManagers face risk in explorative decision-making and those who are better at such decisions can achieve future viability. To understand what makes a manager effective at explorative decision-making requires an analysis of the manager’s motivational characteristics. The behavioral activation/inhibition system (BAS/BIS), fitting the motivational orientation of “approach” or “avoidance,” can affect individual decision-making. However, very little is known about the neural correlates of BAS/BIS orientation and their interrelationship with the mental activity during explorative decision-making. We conducted an fMRI study on 111 potential managers to investigate how the brain responses of explorative decision-making interact with BAS/BIS. Participants were separated into high- and low-performance groups based on the median exploration-score. The low-performance group showed significantly higher BAS than that of the high-performance group, and its BAS had significant negative association with neural networks related to reward-seeking during explorative decision-making. Moreover, the BIS of the low-performance group was negatively correlated with the activation of cerebral regions responding to risk-choice during explorative decision-making. Our finding showed that BAS/BIS was associated with the brain activation during explorative decision-making only in the low-performance group. This study contributed to the understanding of the micro-foundations of strategically relevant decision-making and has an implication for management development.

scholarly journals Systematic Exploration and Uncertainty Dominate Young Children’s Choices

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathaniel J. Blanco ◽  
Vladimir Sloutsky
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Exploration And Exploitation ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Reward Seeking ◽  
Systematic Fashion ◽  
Systematic Exploration ◽  
Competing Demands ◽  
Exploration Exploitation

Organisms need to constantly balance the competing demands of gathering information and using previously acquired information to obtain rewarding outcomes (i.e., the “exploration- exploitation” dilemma). Exploration is critical to obtain information to discover how the world works, which should be particularly important for young children. While studies have shown that young children explore in response to surprising events, little is known about how they balance exploration and exploitation across multiple decisions or about how this process changes with development. In this study we compare decision-making patterns of children and adults and evaluate the relative influences of reward-seeking, random exploration, and systematic switching (which approximates uncertainty-directed exploration). In a second experiment we directly test the effect of uncertainty on children’s choices. Influential models of decision-making generally describe systematic exploration as a computationally refined capacity that relies on top-down cognitive control. We demonstrate that (1) systematic patterns dominate young children’s behavior (facilitating exploration), despite protracted development of cognitive control, and (2) that uncertainty plays a major, but complicated, role in determining children’s choices. We conclude that while young children’s immature top-down control should hinder adult-like systematic exploration, other mechanisms may pick up the slack, facilitating broad information gathering in a systematic fashion to build a foundation of knowledge for use later in life.

scholarly journals Altering gain of the infralimbic-to-accumbens shell circuit alters economically dissociable decision-making algorithms

2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (27) ◽  
pp. E6347-E6355 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian M. Sweis ◽  
Erin B. Larson ◽  
A. David Redish ◽  
Mark J. Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Information Processing ◽  
Synaptic Transmission ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Nucleus Accumbens Shell ◽  
Synaptic Remodeling ◽  
Reward Seeking ◽  
Deliberative Processes ◽  
Reward Valuation

The nucleus accumbens shell (NAcSh) is involved in reward valuation. Excitatory projections from infralimbic cortex (IL) to NAcSh undergo synaptic remodeling in rodent models of addiction and enable the extinction of disadvantageous behaviors. However, how the strength of synaptic transmission of the IL–NAcSh circuit affects decision-making information processing and reward valuation remains unknown, particularly because these processes can conflict within a given trial and particularly given recent data suggesting that decisions arise from separable information-processing algorithms. The approach of many neuromodulation studies is to disrupt information flow during on-going behaviors; however, this limits the interpretation of endogenous encoding of computational processes. Furthermore, many studies are limited by the use of simple behavioral tests of value which are unable to dissociate neurally distinct decision-making algorithms. We optogenetically altered the strength of synaptic transmission between glutamatergic IL–NAcSh projections in mice trained on a neuroeconomic task capable of separating multiple valuation processes. We found that induction of long-term depression in these synapses produced lasting changes in foraging processes without disrupting deliberative processes. Mice displayed inflated reevaluations to stay when deciding whether to abandon continued reward-seeking investments but displayed no changes during initial commitment decisions. We also developed an ensemble-level measure of circuit-specific plasticity that revealed individual differences in foraging valuation tendencies. Our results demonstrate that alterations in projection-specific synaptic strength between the IL and the NAcSh are capable of augmenting self-control economic valuations within a particular decision-making modality and suggest that the valuation mechanisms for these multiple decision-making modalities arise from different circuits.

scholarly journals Abnormalities of confidence in psychiatry: an overview and future perspectives

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Monja Hoven ◽  
Maël Lebreton ◽  
Jan B. Engelmann ◽  
Damiaan Denys ◽  
Judy Luigjes ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
General Population ◽  
Psychiatric Disorders ◽  
Symptom Severity ◽  
Positive Relationship ◽  
Psychiatric Symptoms ◽  
Current Knowledge ◽  
Future Perspectives ◽  
Psychiatric Symptomatology ◽  
Underlying Processes

Abstract Our behavior is constantly accompanied by a sense of confidence and its’ precision is critical for adequate adaptation and survival. Importantly, abnormal confidence judgments that do not reflect reality may play a crucial role in pathological decision-making typically seen in psychiatric disorders. In this review, we propose abnormalities of confidence as a new model of interpreting psychiatric symptoms. We hypothesize a dysfunction of confidence at the root of psychiatric symptoms either expressed subclinically in the general population or clinically in the patient population. Our review reveals a robust association between confidence abnormalities and psychiatric symptomatology. Confidence abnormalities are present in subclinical/prodromal phases of psychiatric disorders, show a positive relationship with symptom severity, and appear to normalize after recovery. In the reviewed literature, the strongest evidence was found for a decline in confidence in (sub)clinical OCD, and for a decrease in confidence discrimination in (sub)clinical schizophrenia. We found suggestive evidence for increased/decreased confidence in addiction and depression/anxiety, respectively. Confidence abnormalities may help to understand underlying psychopathological substrates across disorders, and should thus be considered transdiagnostically. This review provides clear evidence for confidence abnormalities in different psychiatric disorders, identifies current knowledge gaps and supplies suggestions for future avenues. As such, it may guide future translational research into the underlying processes governing these abnormalities, as well as future interventions to restore them.

Executive Dashboard as a mediating technology of organization

2019 ◽  
pp. 224-237
Author(s):  
Armin Beverungen
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Technical System ◽  
Computational System ◽  
Executive Manager ◽  
Human Decision ◽  
Computation Management ◽  
And Control ◽  
Computational Processes

This chapter interrogates the executive dashboard as a contemporary example of the deployment of computation in management. Conceptualizing the dashboard as an interface, it explores how it reconfigures human–machine relations and their respective intelligences. The dashboard separates the executive manager and the computational system, as much as it augments both in their capacities for decision and control. Human decision making emerges as a residuality and an exception to computational processes, while decision making is also distributed within and delegated to the technical system. The dashboarding of human–machine intelligences produces a smartness characterizing contemporary computation, management, and organization.

scholarly journals Exploration-related strategy mediates negative coupling between decision-making performance and psychiatric symptoms

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shinsuke Suzuki ◽  
Yuichi Yamashita ◽  
Kentaro Katahira
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Psychiatric Symptoms ◽  
Two Dimensions ◽  
Depression And Anxiety ◽  
Obsessive Compulsive ◽  
Overall Performance ◽  
Negative Coupling ◽  
High Comorbidity ◽  
Model Based Analysis

AbstractVarious psychiatric symptoms are often accompanied by impairments in decision-making. Given the high comorbidity of psychiatric disorders, symptoms that specifically couple with the impairment remain unidentified. The computations involved in decision-making that mediate the coupling are also elusive. Here, we conducted an online experiment with healthy individuals (n=939), participating in a decision-making task and completing questionnaires about psychiatric symptoms. The questionnaire data identified two dimensions underlying various symptoms: the first is mainly associated with obsessive-compulsive traits whereas the second is associated with depression and anxiety. Furthermore, by model-based analysis, we found only the first dimension was negatively correlated with the overall performance of the decision-making task, and the negative correlation was mediated by choice stochasticity (random exploration) and propensity to choose options previously unchosen. Given that the preference for previously unchosen options can reflect uncertainty-driven exploration, our findings highlight a key role of exploration-related strategies in psychiatric deficits of decision-making.

scholarly journals Multimodal Investigations of Reward Circuitry and Anhedonia in Adolescent Depression

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin A. Ely ◽  
Tram N. B. Nguyen ◽  
Russell H. Tobe ◽  
Audrey M. Walker ◽  
Vilma Gabbay
Keyword(s):  
Adolescent Depression ◽  
Psychiatric Symptoms ◽  
Salient Feature ◽  
Course Of Illness ◽  
Reward Circuitry ◽  
Reward Function ◽  
Reward Seeking ◽  
Systemic Factors ◽  
Psychiatric Conditions ◽  
Immunological Assays

Depression is a highly prevalent condition with devastating personal and public health consequences that often first manifests during adolescence. Though extensively studied, the pathogenesis of depression remains poorly understood, and efforts to stratify risks and identify optimal interventions have proceeded slowly. A major impediment has been the reliance on an all-or-nothing categorical diagnostic scheme based solely on whether a patient endorses an arbitrary number of common symptoms for a sufficiently long period. This approach masks the well-documented heterogeneity of depression, a disorder that is highly variable in presentation, severity, and course between individuals and is frequently comorbid with other psychiatric conditions. In this targeted review, we outline the limitations of traditional diagnosis-based research and instead advocate an alternative approach centered around symptoms as unique dimensions of clinical dysfunction that span across disorders and more closely reflect underlying neurobiological abnormalities. In particular, we highlight anhedonia—the reduced ability to anticipate and experience pleasure—as a specific, quantifiable index of reward dysfunction and an ideal candidate for dimensional investigation. Anhedonia is a core symptom of depression but also a salient feature of numerous other conditions, and its severity varies widely within clinical and even healthy populations. Similarly, reward dysfunction is a hallmark of depression but is evident across many psychiatric conditions. Reward function is especially relevant in adolescence, a period characterized by exaggerated reward-seeking behaviors and rapid maturation of neural reward circuitry. We detail extensive work by our research group and others to investigate the neural and systemic factors contributing to reward dysfunction in youth, including our cumulative findings using multiple neuroimaging and immunological measures to study depressed adolescents but also trans-diagnostic cohorts with diverse psychiatric symptoms. We describe convergent evidence that reward dysfunction: (a) predicts worse clinical outcomes, (b) is associated with functional and chemical abnormalities within and beyond the neural reward circuitry, (c) is linked to elevated peripheral levels of inflammatory biomarkers, and (d) manifests early in the course of illness. Emphasis is placed on high-resolution neuroimaging techniques, comprehensive immunological assays, and data-driven analyses to fully capture and characterize the complex, interconnected nature of these systems and their contributions to adolescent reward dysfunction.

The Development of Neurosis in the Wives of Neurotic Men

1973 ◽  
Vol 122 (571) ◽  
pp. 711-717 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irene M. K. Ovenstone
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Family Structure ◽  
Interpersonal Relationships ◽  
Psychiatric Symptoms ◽  
Normal Families ◽  
Control Group

Complementarity of roles is chiefly responsible for the degree of harmony and stability obtaining in interpersonal relationships (Spiegel, 1957). Collinset al.(1971) compared decision-making in the marriages of a group of male neurotics and in a control group. They found that patient marriages were more often categorized as ‘segregated’ (where distinct areas of responsibility were demarcated for each spouse) or ‘husband-dominated’ (where most of the decisions were made by the husband). Conflict over decision-making was also commoner in the patient marriages. By contrast, the control marriages were more often co-operative (both partners collaborated equally in a co-operative manner). The authors suggested that the severity of the husband's neurosis led to the adoption of certain patterns of decision-making which in turn led to conflict. They proposed that these patterns of behaviour might partly explain the development of psychiatric symptoms in the patient's spouse. In a series of normal families in Australia, Herbst (1954) noted that as the percentage of separate decisions increased tension rose. The ‘syncratic’ family structure (comparable to the co-operative pattern) was below average in tension, while the ‘autocratic’ (comparable to the segregated pattern) carried the highest tension.

scholarly journals Understanding the Role of Incentive Salience in Sexual Decision-Making

2020 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 712-721 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen S Lynch ◽  
Michael J Ryan
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Mate Choice ◽  
Incentive Salience ◽  
Partner Preference ◽  
Male Courtship ◽  
Sexual Decision Making ◽  
Reward Seeking ◽  
Sexual Encounters ◽  
Courtship Signals ◽  
Preference Tests

Synopsis In the search for understanding female sexual decision-making, progress has been made in uncovering a variety of perceptual biases and most of these concern the animal’s sensory biology and cognitive processes. We are now poised to dig deeper into the female’s decision-making and ask if incentive salience, which plays a role in all types of appetitive behaviors, also influences a female’s “taste for the beautiful.” The incentive salience hypothesis suggests that dopamine assigns value or salience to objects or actions. After value is assigned to all potential actions, an action selection system then chooses among potential options to select the most valuable action. In this view, dopamine stimulates reward-seeking behavior by assigning incentive salience to specific behavioral actions, which in turn, increases pursuit and focus on objects or stimuli that represent the valuable action. Here, we apply this framework to understand why females are compelled to respond maximally to some male courtship signals over others and how this process may reveal a female’s hidden mate preferences. We examine studies of dopamine and the mesolimbic reward system because these may play a role in expanding the female’s perceptual landscape for novelty in male courtship signals and establishing novel hidden preferences. We review three avenues of research that may identify signatures of incentive salience in females during sexual decision-making. This review includes studies of dopamine agonist or antagonist administration in females during mate choice or partner preference tests, measures of neural activity in dopaminergic neural circuits during mate choice or partner preference tests, and social regulation of dopamine in females when entering reproductive contexts and/or exposure to mate signals. By applying the incentive salience hypothesis to female reproductive decision-making, it redefines how we see the female’s role in sexual encounters. Females cannot be considered passive during reproductive encounters; rather they are seeking sexual encounters, particularly with males that tap into their perceptual biases and initiate a reward-seeking response. Incentive salience applied to reproductive behavior requires considering females as viewing sexual stimuli as rewarding and initiating action to seek out this reward, all of which indicates females are driving sexual encounters.

scholarly journals Understanding jumping to conclusions in patients with persecutory delusions: working memory and intolerance of uncertainty

2014 ◽  
Vol 44 (14) ◽  
pp. 3017-3024 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Freeman ◽  
H. Startup ◽  
G. Dunn ◽  
E. Černis ◽  
G. Wingham ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Psychiatric Symptoms ◽  
Memory Performance ◽  
Intolerance Of Uncertainty ◽  
Contributory Factor ◽  
Limited Information ◽  
Psychotic Experience ◽  
Persecutory Delusions ◽  
Jumping To Conclusions

BackgroundPersecutory delusions are a key psychotic experience. A reasoning style known as ‘jumping to conclusions’ (JTC) – limited information gathering before reaching certainty in decision making – has been identified as a contributory factor in the occurrence of delusions. The cognitive processes that underpin JTC need to be determined in order to develop effective interventions for delusions. In the current study two alternative perspectives were tested: that JTC partially results from impairment in information-processing capabilities and that JTC is a motivated strategy to avoid uncertainty.MethodA group of 123 patients with persistent persecutory delusions completed assessments of JTC (the 60:40 beads task), IQ, working memory, intolerance of uncertainty, and psychiatric symptoms. Patients showing JTC were compared with patients not showing JTC.ResultsA total of 30 (24%) patients with delusions showed JTC. There were no differences between patients who did and did not jump to conclusions in overall psychopathology. Patients who jumped to conclusions had poorer working memory performance, lower IQ, lower intolerance of uncertainty and lower levels of worry. Working memory and worry independently predicted the presence of JTC.ConclusionsHasty decision making in patients with delusions may partly arise from difficulties in keeping information in mind. Interventions for JTC are likely to benefit from addressing working memory performance, whilein vivotechniques for patients with delusions will benefit from limiting the demands on working memory. The study provides little evidence for a contribution to JTC from top-down motivational beliefs about uncertainty.

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