Neuronal processes that drive behavioral motivation have been found, according to Science
'A neuronal mechanism for motivational control of behavior' published in Science by Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research, University of Basel.
Almost everything you do in your daily life is geared toward achieving a specific goal. The brain has the ability to maintain a motivated state in order to lead behaviors toward desired results. Deep brain calcium imaging, electrophysiological, and optogenetic data in mice demonstrate that significant neurons in the basolateral amygdala integrate and encode information regarding the identification of the desired outcome, its value, and action-outcome contingencies during goal-directed activity. The current outcome identity and value are represented by basolateral amygdala neuronal activation during consumption.
A range of factors influences animal motivation to engage in goal-directed activity, ranging from the animal's overall metabolic condition to specific task aspects such as outcome identity, outcome value, and action-outcome contingency. The researchers concentrated on the neuronal correlates of the underlying parameters that support goal-directed action during both action execution and reward consumption.
In this study, mice models were trained on a self-paced, instrumental goal-directed task in which one action resulted in the provision of a sucrose reward and the other in the provision of a milk reward, with no explicit stimulus signaling trial onset or reward availability. The researchers discovered that after 5 days of training, mice exhibited stereotyped sequences of self-paced behaviors that alternated between periods of action execution when the mice pursued a goal and reward consumption when the goal was reached, based on an automatically derived description of the mouse behavior.
The researchers discovered distinct sets of amygdala neurons active during action-consuming sequences using in vivo deep brain Ca2+ imaging and electrophysiology. For behaviorally relevant information, these sets were mixed spatially and propagated to multiple striatal subregions.
Different patterns of neuronal activity sequentially depict the full action-consumption behavior sequence, according to the researchers. The identity, value, and anticipation of the objective sought are reflected in the action-related patterns, whereas the identity and value of the outcome experienced are reflected in the consumption-related patterns. As a result of the interaction between these patterns, specific motivational states can be maintained in order to adaptively orient behavior toward the desired reward.
The interaction between diverse outcome-specific and updatable patterns of neural activity encoding and maintaining the precise motivational states required to undertake adaptive, self-initiated action-consuming sequences is demonstrated in this study. Amygdala neurons segregate behaviorally significant information into axes, such as outcome identity, value, and expectation. As a result, the authors establish the concept of specific motivation and expand on the traditional theory that the amygdala regulates outcome-seeking behavior by assigning value to sensory stimuli that predict outcomes.
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