title: Translational studies of goal-directed action as a framework for classifying deficits across psychiatric disorders.
abstract: The ability to learn contingencies between actions and outcomes in a dynamic environment is critical for flexible, adaptive behavior. Goal-directed actions adapt to changes in action-outcome contingencies as well as to changes in the reward-value of the outcome. When networks involved in reward processing and contingency learning are maladaptive, this fundamental ability can be lost, with detrimental consequences for decision-making. Impaired decision-making is a core feature in a number of psychiatric disorders, ranging from depression to schizophrenia. The argument can be developed, therefore, that seemingly disparate symptoms across psychiatric disorders can be explained by dysfunction within common decision-making circuitry. From this perspective, gaining a better understanding of the neural processes involved in goal-directed action, will allow a comparison of deficits observed across traditional diagnostic boundaries within a unified theoretical framework. This review describes the key processes and neural circuits involved in goal-directed decision-making using evidence from animal studies and human neuroimaging. Select studies are discussed to outline what we currently know about causal judgments regarding actions and their consequences, action-related reward evaluation, and, most importantly, how these processes are integrated in goal-directed learning and performance. Finally, we look at how adaptive decision-making is impaired across a range of psychiatric disorders and how deepening our understanding of this circuitry may offer insights into phenotypes and more targeted interventions.
authors.affiliation: Behavioural Neuroscience Laboratory, Brain and Mind Research Institute, University of Sydney Camperdown, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
authors.forename: Kristi R
authors.initials: KR
authors.lastname: Griffiths
authors.affiliation: Behavioural Neuroscience Laboratory, Brain and Mind Research Institute, University of Sydney Camperdown, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
authors.forename: Richard W
authors.initials: RW
authors.lastname: Morris
authors.affiliation: Behavioural Neuroscience Laboratory, Brain and Mind Research Institute, University of Sydney Camperdown, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
authors.forename: Bernard W
authors.initials: BW
authors.lastname: Balleine
keywords: ADHD; amygdala; basal ganglia; depression; goal-directed action; schizophrenia