Dopamine and proximity in motivation and cognitive control

Publication date: August 2018 Source:Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, Volume 22 Author(s): Andrew Westbrook, Michael Frank Cognitive control—the ability to override a salient or prepotent action to execute a more deliberate one—is required for flexible, goal-directed behavior, and yet it is subjectively costly: decision-makers avoid allocating control resources, even when doing so affords more valuable outcomes. Dopamine likely offsets effort costs just as it does for physical effort. And yet, dopamine can also promote impulsive action, undermining control. We propose a novel hypothesis that reconciles opposing effects of dopamine on cognitive control: during action selection, striatal dopamine biases benefits relative to costs, but does so preferentially for ‘proximal’ motor and cognitive actions. Considering the nature of instrumental affordances and their dynamics during action selection facilitates a parsimonious interpretation and conserved corticostriatal mechanisms across physical and cognitive domains.

Source: Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences - January 4, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research