Browsing by Subject "decision-making"

Aims. In our everyday activities, we need to make a great number of decisions, like choosing a high-rewarded but effortful or low-rewarded but rather effortless task. This value-based decision-making is regulated by the dopaminergic system. Recent technological advances have made it possible to measure in real-time the neural activity of dopaminergic brain regions and thus enabled training to self-regulate those regions. The present study aims to investigate the effect of self-regulation of dopaminergic brain regions on value-based decision-making – specifically effort discounting – and how stress moderates the relationship between neural activity and value-based decision-making. Methods. Using real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging (rt-fMRI), 74 participants (34 females, age M= 22.5) were trained to self-regulate dopaminergic midbrain regions. During the subsequent test session participants up- or down-regulated dopaminergic midbrain regions before performing the value-based decision-making task. Participants were faced with a choice to either accept to perform the N-back task and get a higher reward or refuse and get a lower reward. Acute and chronic stress was measured before and after the experiment using questionnaires. Linear mixed model analyses were performed to investigate the effects of self-regulation and stress on decision-making behavior. Results and conclusions. Upregulation of dopaminergic midbrain activity significantly increased the probability of choosing the effortful task and decreased effort discounting. Downregulation of the dopaminergic midbrain was not significantly affecting decision-making. Chronic stress was not significantly affecting decision-making. Acute stress had a significant main effect on decision- making and interacted with the self-regulation of dopaminergic midbrain activity by increasing effort discounting. Taken together, upregulation of the dopaminergic midbrain is an effective way to decrease effort discounting, and acute stress can have a negative impact on value-based decision-making.