title: Effort discounting in human nucleus accumbens.
abstract: A great deal of behavioral and economic research suggests that the value attached to a reward stands in inverse relation to the amount of effort required to obtain it, a principle known as effort discounting. In the present article, we present the first direct evidence for a neural analogue of effort discounting. We used fMRI to measure neural responses to monetary rewards in the human nucleus accumbens (NAcc), a structure previously demonstrated to encode reference-dependent reward information. The magnitude of accumbens activation was found to vary with both reward outcome and the degree of mental effort demanded to obtain individual rewards. For a fixed level of reward, the NAcc was less strongly activated following a high-demand for effort than following a low demand. The magnitude of this effect was noted to correlate with preceding activation in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, a region that has been proposed to monitor information-processing demands and to mediate in the subjective experience of effort.
authors.affiliation: Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, USA. matthewb@princeton.edu
authors.forename: Matthew M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Botvinick
authors.forename: Stacy
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Huffstetler
authors.forename: Joseph T
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: McGuire
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002755:Choice Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D005108:Extinction, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D009714:Nucleus Accumbens / Q000098:blood supply / Q000502:physiology*; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011336:Probability; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012201:Reward; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D010100:Oxygen