Functional and neural mechanisms underlying cognition emotion interaction in incentive learning and decision making

This dissertation presents research on functional and neural mechanisms of cognition-emotion interaction in incentive learning (preference formation) and related decision making (preference expression) in three chapters. A novel reward-based preference formation and expression task was devised based on the logic of interference: if the introduction of incongruent emotional and cognitive information interferes with reward-based preference, then it corroborates the existence of cognition-emotion interaction in reward-based preference. In Chapter II participants were assigned to different conditions in which the relation between the emotional and cognitive information was congruent, incongruent, or neutral in the preference formation. The results show that the incongruent condition interfered with reward-based preference, suggesting the existence of cognition-emotion interaction. However, the congruent condition also created minor interference with reward-based preference, suggesting that the interacting cognitive and emotional information were not integrated as a whole. In Chapter III the neural mechanisms underlying the cognition-emotion interaction were examined by running the reward-based preference task in the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) setting. The results indicate that the nucleus accumbens, amygdala, hippocampus, and midbrain may subserve the cognition-emotion interaction in reward-based preference by being related to the emotional processing, the preference formation or expression, and the interaction between the emotional processing and reward-based preference. Lastly, Chapter IV presents research that addressed incentive learning that underlies the formation of reward-based preference. The literature suggests that incentive learning encompasses dissociable valuational and contextual components. The former refers to processes that establish or represent values and the latter refers to processes that setup occasions or monitor contexts to modulate values. By analyzing the fMRI data with contrasts among various context setting and outcome conditions in a value-by-context factorial design, brain regions were characterized as valuational-learning related, including the amygdala and nucleus accumbens, or as contextual-learning related, including the hippocampus and midbrain. Overall, the findings identify the neural underpinnings of cognition-emotion interaction in reward-based incentive learning and characterize them as related to dissociable functions. The implications to psychiatric diagnosis and intervention are discussed.