title: Human mesostriatal response tracks motivational tendencies under naturalistic goal conflict.
abstract: Goal conflict situations, involving the simultaneous presence of reward and punishment, occur commonly in real life, and reflect well-known individual differences in the behavioral tendency to approach or avoid. However, despite accumulating neural depiction of motivational processing, the investigation of naturalistic approach behavior and its interplay with individual tendencies is remarkably lacking. We developed a novel ecological interactive scenario which triggers motivational behavior under high or low goal conflict conditions. Fifty-five healthy subjects played the game during a functional magnetic resonance imaging scan. A machine-learning approach was applied to classify approach/avoidance behaviors during the game. To achieve an independent measure of individual tendencies, an integrative profile was composed from three established theoretical models. Results demonstrated that approach under high relative to low conflict involved increased activity in the ventral tegmental area (VTA), peri-aquaductal gray, ventral striatum (VS) and precuneus. Notably, only VS and VTA activations during high conflict discriminated between approach/avoidance personality profiles, suggesting that the relationship between individual personality and naturalistic motivational tendencies is uniquely associated with the mesostriatal pathway. VTA-VS further demonstrated stronger coupling during high vs low conflict. These findings are the first to unravel the multilevel relationship among personality profile, approach tendencies in naturalistic set-up and their underlying neural manifestation, thus enabling new avenues for investigating approach-related psychopathologies.
authors.affiliation: Functional Brain Center, Wohl Institute for Advanced Imaging, Tel Aviv Medical Center, Tel Aviv 6423906, Israel, Functional Brain Center, Wohl Institute for Advanced Imaging, Tel Aviv Medical Center, Tel Aviv 6423906, Israel.
authors.forename: Tal
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Gonen
authors.affiliation: Functional Brain Center, Wohl Institute for Advanced Imaging, Tel Aviv Medical Center, Tel Aviv 6423906, Israel, School of Psychological Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 6910302, Israel.
authors.forename: Eyal
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Soreq
authors.affiliation: Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, University College London, London WC1N 3BG, United Kingdom, Max Planck University College, London Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, London WC1B 5EH, United Kingdom, and.
authors.forename: Eran
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Eldar
authors.affiliation: Functional Brain Center, Wohl Institute for Advanced Imaging, Tel Aviv Medical Center, Tel Aviv 6423906, Israel, Sackler Faculty of Medicine and.
authors.forename: Eti
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ben-Simon
authors.affiliation: Functional Brain Center, Wohl Institute for Advanced Imaging, Tel Aviv Medical Center, Tel Aviv 6423906, Israel.
authors.forename: Gal
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Raz
authors.affiliation: Functional Brain Center, Wohl Institute for Advanced Imaging, Tel Aviv Medical Center, Tel Aviv 6423906, Israel, School of Psychological Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 6910302, Israel, Sackler Faculty of Medicine and Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 6910302, Israel talma@tlvmc.gov.il.
authors.forename: Talma
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hendler
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001931:Brain Mapping / Q000379:methods*; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D005260:Female; D006040:Goals; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D010551:Personality / Q000502:physiology*; D066328:Ventral Striatum / Q000502:physiology*; D017557:Ventral Tegmental Area / Q000502:physiology*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: approach; fMRI; motivation; personality; ventral striatum; ventral tegmental area
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