Biology subjects

Luigjes, J.

Publications and source records attributed to Luigjes, J..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2021

Metacognition and the effect of incentive motivation in two compulsive disorders: gambling disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder

Compulsivity is a common phenotype amongst various psychiatric disorders, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and gambling disorder (GD). Deficiencies in metacognition, such as the inability to properly estimate ones own performance via well-calibrated confidence judgments could contribute to pathological decision-making in these psychiatric disorders. Earlier research has indeed suggested that OCD and GD patients reside at opposite ends of the confidence spectrum, with OCD patients exhibiting underconfidence, and GD patients exhibiting overconfidence. Recently, several studies established that motivational states (e.g. monetary incentives) influence metacognition, with gain (respectively loss) prospects increasing (respectively decreasing) confidence judgments. Here, we reasoned that the OCD and GD symptomatology might correspond to an exacerbation of this interaction between metacognition and motivational states. We hypothesized GDs overconfidence to be exaggerated during gain prospects, while OCDs underconfidence to be worsened in loss context, which we expected to see represented in ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) activity. We tested those hypotheses in a task-based functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) design. Our initial analyses showed increased confidence levels for GD versus OCD patients, that could partly be explained by sex and IQ. Although our primary analyses did not support the hypothesized interaction between incentives and groups, exploratory analyses did show increased confidence in GD patients specifically in gain context. fMRI analyses confirmed a central role for VMPFC in the processing of confidence and incentives, but with no differences between the clinical samples. The trial is registered in the Dutch Trial Register (Trial NL6171, registration number: NTR6318) (https://www.trialregister.nl/trial/6171).

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2020

How motivational signals disrupt metacognitive signals in the human VMPFC.

A growing body of evidence suggests that, during decision-making, BOLD signal in the VMPFC correlates both with motivational variables - such as incentives and expected values - and metacognitive variables - such as confidence judgments, which reflect the subjective probability of being correct. At the behavioral level, we recently demonstrated that the value of monetary stakes bias confidence judgments, with gain (respectively loss) prospects increasing (respectively decreasing) confidence judgments, even for similar levels of difficulty and performance. If and how this value-confidence interaction is also reflected in VMPFC signals remains unknown. Here, we used an incentivized perceptual decision-making task that dissociates key decision-making variables, thereby allowing to test several hypotheses about the role of the VMPFC in the incentive-confidence interaction. While initial analyses seemingly indicate that VMPFC combines incentives and confidence to form an expected value signal, we falsified this conclusion with a meticulous dissection of qualitative activation patterns. Rather, our results show that strong VMPFC confidence signals observed in trials with gain prospects are disrupted in trials with no - or negative (loss) monetary prospects. Deciphering how decision variables are represented and interact at finer scales (population codes, individual neurons) seems necessary to better understand biased (meta)cognition.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2019

Deep brain stimulation modulates directional frontolimbic connectivity in obsessive-compulsive disorder

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is effective for patients with treatment-refractory obsessive-compulsive disorder. DBS of the ventral anterior limb of the internal capsule (vALIC) rapidly improves mood and anxiety with optimal stimulation parameters. To understand these rapid effects of vALIC-DBS, we studied functional interactions within the affective amygdala circuit. We compared resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging data during chronic stimulation versus one week of stimulation discontinuation in patients, and obtained two resting state scans from matched healthy volunteers to account for test-retest effects. Imaging data were analyzed using functional connectivity analysis and dynamic causal modelling. Improvement in mood and anxiety following DBS was associated with reduced amygdala-insula functional connectivity. Directional connectivity analysis revealed that DBS increased the impact of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex on the amygdala, and decreased the impact of the amygdala on the insula. These results highlight the importance of the amygdala circuit in the pathophysiology of OCD, and suggest a neural systems model through which negative mood and anxiety are modulated by vALIC-DBS for OCD and possibly other psychiatric disorders.\n\nOne Sentence SummaryDeep brain stimulation improves mood and anxiety in obsessive-compulsive disorder by altering connectivity between the amygdala, insula and prefrontal cortex.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2017

Two sides of the same coin: monetary incentives concurrently improve and bias confidence judgments.

Decisions are accompanied by a feeling of confidence, i.e., a belief about the decision being correct. Confidence accuracy is critical, notably in high-stakes situations such as medical or financial decisionmaking. Here, we investigated how incentive motivation influences confidence accuracy by combining a perceptual task with a confidence incentivization mechanism. Importantly, by varying the magnitude and valence (gains or losses) of monetary incentives, we orthogonalized their motivational and affective components. Corroborating theories of rational decision-making and motivation, our results first reveal that the motivational value of incentives improves aspects of confidence accuracy. However, in line with a value-confidence interaction hypothesis we further show that the affective value of incentives concurrently biases confidence reports, thus degrading confidence accuracy. Finally, we demonstrate that the motivational and affective effects of incentives differentially impact how confidence builds on perceptual evidence. Altogether, these findings may provide new hints about confidence miscalibration in healthy or pathological contexts.

animal behavior and cognition↗