Cognitive Effort Modulates Connectivity between Dorsal Anterior Cingulate Cortex and Task-Relevant Cortical Areas

Autor: Bart Aben, Eva Van den Bussche, Cristian Buc Calderon, Tom Verguts
Rok vydání: 2020
Předmět:
Male
VALUATION
INTEGRATIVE THEORY
Social Sciences
DECISION-MAKING
Task (project management)
Cognition
0302 clinical medicine
Parietal Lobe
Neural Pathways
Attention
Research Articles
media_common
General Neuroscience
fMRI
05 social sciences
Human brain
Top-down and bottom-up design
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
anterior cingulate cortex
MEDIAL FRONTAL-CORTEX
medicine.anatomical_structure
Female
Psychology
BEHAVIOR
Cognitive psychology
Adult
Adolescent
PPI
media_common.quotation_subject
Intraparietal sulcus
Gyrus Cinguli
050105 experimental psychology
MECHANISMS
Young Adult
03 medical and health sciences
FACE
Perception
medicine
Humans
0501 psychology and cognitive sciences
Anterior cingulate cortex
cognitive effort
functional connectivity
ATTENTION
Cognitive effort
TOP-DOWN
Neurocognitive
SYSTEM
030217 neurology & neurosurgery
Zdroj: J Neurosci
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
ISSN: 0270-6474
1529-2401
Popis: Investment of cognitive effort is required in everyday life and has received ample attention in recent neurocognitive frameworks. The neural mechanism of effort investment is thought to be structured hierarchically, with dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) at the highest level, recruiting task-specific upstream areas. In the current fMRI study, we tested whether dACC is generally active when effort demand is high across tasks with different stimuli, and whether connectivity between dACC and task-specific areas is increased depending on the task requirements and effort level at hand. For that purpose, a perceptual detection task was administered that required male and female human participants to detect either a face or a house in a noisy image. Effort demand was manipulated by adding little (low effort) or much (high effort) noise to the images. Results showed a network of dACC, anterior insula (AI), and intraparietal sulcus (IPS) to be more active when effort demand was high, independent of the performed task (face or house detection). Importantly, effort demand modulated functional connectivity between dACC and face-responsive or house-responsive perceptual areas, depending on the task at hand. This shows that dACC, AI, and IPS constitute a general effort-responsive network and suggests that the neural implementation of cognitive effort involves dACC-initiated sensitization of task-relevant areas.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENTAlthough cognitive effort is generally perceived as aversive, its investment is inevitable when navigating an increasingly complex society. In this study, we demonstrate how the human brain tailors the implementation of effort to the requirements of the task at hand. We show increased effort-related activity in a network of brain areas consisting of dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), anterior insula, and intraparietal sulcus, independent of task specifics. Crucially, we also show that effort-induced functional connectivity between dACC and task-relevant areas tracks specific task demands. These results demonstrate how brain regions specialized to solve a task may be energized by dACC when effort demand is high.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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