title: Stress increases aversive prediction error signal in the ventral striatum.
abstract: From job interviews to the heat of battle, it is evident that people think and learn differently when stressed. In fact, learning under stress may have long-term consequences; stress facilitates aversive conditioning and associations learned during extreme stress may result in debilitating emotional responses in posttraumatic stress disorder. The mechanisms underpinning such stress-related associations, however, are unknown. Computational neuroscience has successfully characterized several mechanisms critical for associative learning under normative conditions. One such mechanism, the detection of a mismatch between expected and observed outcomes within the ventral striatum (i.e., "prediction errors"), is thought to be a critical precursor to the formation of new stimulus-outcome associations. An untested possibility, therefore, is that stress may affect learning via modulation of this mechanism. Here we combine a translational model of stress with a cognitive neuroimaging paradigm to demonstrate that stress significantly increases ventral striatum aversive (but not appetitive) prediction error signal. This provides a unique account of the propensity to form threat-related associations under stress with direct implications for our understanding of both normal stress and stress-related disorders.
authors: Section on Neurobiology of Fear and Anxiety, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA. oliver.j.robinson@gmail.com
authors: Oliver J
authors: OJ
authors: Robinson
authors: Cassie
authors: C
authors: Overstreet
authors: Danielle R
authors: DR
authors: Charney
authors: Katherine
authors: K
authors: Vytal
authors: Christian
authors: C
authors: Grillon
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001007:Anxiety / Q000503:physiopathology; D001070:Appetitive Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008960:Models, Psychological; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000503:physiopathology*; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology*; D055815:Young Adult
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