Preprint
Neurocomputational mechanisms underlying the distinct motivational influences of reward and punishment on cognitive control
bioRxiv
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 1.2
10/18/2025
DOI: 10.1101/2025.10.17.682886
PMID: 41279196
Abstract
Human motivation is fundamentally shaped by one’s expectations of the reward they could earn for good performance or the penalty they would avoid for poor performance. However, the extent to which distinct brain regions are selectively associated with specific incentives and/or their corresponding influence on control strategy remains unclear. Using model-based fMRI and a novel multi-incentive control task, we observed distinct neural patterns by incentive valence, with ventral striatum and caudal subregion of dorsal anterior cingulate cortex showing greater sensitivity to rewards whereas inferior frontal gyrus and rostral subregion of dorsal anterior cingulate cortex showing greater sensitivity to penalties. Reward-sensitive regions were associated with increased efficiency (e.g., faster responding with moderate decreases in accuracy) whereas penalty-sensitive regions were associated with increased caution (e.g., slower responding with increased accuracy). We disentangled the global and selective influences of motivation on control processes and subjective experience, providing novel insight into the neurocomputational mechanisms of how effort is determined by expected reward and punishment.
Distinct dACC sub-networks guide dissociable control strategies, revealing how dissociable mental effort profiles are determined by reward and punishment.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Neurocomputational mechanisms underlying the distinct motivational influences of reward and punishment on cognitive control
- Creators
- Debbie M. Yee - Brown UniversityMahalia Prater Fahey - Department of Neuroimaging, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, Kings College LondonZiwei Cheng - University of California, BerkeleyXiamin Leng - Berkeley CollegeJoonhwa Kim - Brown UniversityMaisy Tarlow - Brown UniversityKaitlyn Mundy - Brown UniversitySamuel Nevins - Brown UniversityAmitai Shenhav - Brown University
- Resource Type
- Preprint
- Publication Details
- bioRxiv
- Edition
- 1.2
- DOI
- 10.1101/2025.10.17.682886
- PMID
- 41279196
- ISSN
- 2692-8205
- eISSN
- 2692-8205
- Publisher
- Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
- Number of pages
- 33
- Language
- English
- Date posted
- 10/18/2025
- Academic Unit
- Psychological and Brain Sciences
- Record Identifier
- 9985182276202771
Metrics
1 Record Views