Incentive Processing Research Articles

The Promise and Challenges of Intensive Longitudinal Designs for Imbalance Models of Adolescent Substance Use.

Imbalance models of adolescent brain development attribute the increasing engagement in substance use during adolescence to within-person changes in the functional balance between the neural systems underlying socio-emotional, incentive processing, and cognitive control. However, the experimental designs and analytic techniques used to date do not lend themselves to explicit tests of how within-person change and within-person variability in socio-emotional processing and cognitive control place individual adolescents at risk for substance use. For a more complete articulation and a more stringent test of these models, we highlight the promise and challenges of using intensive longitudinal designs and analysis techniques that encompass many (often >10) within-person measurement occasions. Use of intensive longitudinal designs will lend researchers the tools required to make within-person inferences in individual adolescents that will ultimately align imbalance models of adolescent substance use with the methodological frameworks used to test them.

Moderation of alcohol craving reactivity to drinking-related contexts by individual differences in alcohol sensitivity: An ecological investigation.

Laboratory cue exposure investigations have demonstrated that, relative to drinkers who report a high sensitivity to the pharmacologic effects of alcohol, low-sensitivity (LS) drinkers show exaggerated neurocognitive and behavioral reactivity to alcohol-related stimuli. The current study extends this line of work by testing whether LS drinkers report stronger cravings for alcohol in daily life. Data were from an ecological momentary assessment study in which participants (N = 403 frequent drinkers) carried a palmtop computer for 21 days and responded to questions regarding drinking behavior, alcohol craving, mood states, and situational context. Initial analyses identified subjective states (positive and negative mood, cigarette craving) and contextual factors (bar-restaurant location, weekend, time of day, presence of friend, recent smoking) associated with elevated craving states during nondrinking moments. Effects for nearly all these craving correlates were moderated by individual differences in alcohol sensitivity, such that the associations between situational factors and current alcohol craving were larger among LS individuals (as determined by a questionnaire completed at baseline). Complementary idiographic analyses indicated that self-reported craving increased when the constellation of situational factors more closely resembled individuals' observed drinking situations. Again, this effect was moderated by alcohol sensitivity, with greater craving response increases among LS drinkers. The findings align with predictions generated from theory and laboratory cue exposure investigations and should encourage further study of craving and incentive processes in LS drinkers. (PsycINFO Database Record

Staged Incentive and Punishment Mechanism for Mobile Crowd Sensing.

Having an incentive mechanism is crucial for the recruitment of mobile users to participate in a sensing task and to ensure that participants provide high-quality sensing data. In this paper, we investigate a staged incentive and punishment mechanism for mobile crowd sensing. We first divide the incentive process into two stages: the recruiting stage and the sensing stage. In the recruiting stage, we introduce the payment incentive coefficient and design a Stackelberg-based game method. The participants can be recruited via game interaction. In the sensing stage, we propose a sensing data utility algorithm in the interaction. After the sensing task, the winners can be filtered out using data utility, which is affected by time–space correlation. In particular, the participants’ reputation accumulation can be carried out based on data utility, and a punishment mechanism is presented to reduce the waste of payment costs caused by malicious participants. Finally, we conduct an extensive study of our solution based on realistic data. Extensive experiments show that compared to the existing positive auction incentive mechanism (PAIM) and reverse auction incentive mechanism (RAIM), our proposed staged incentive mechanism (SIM) can effectively extend the incentive behavior from the recruiting stage to the sensing stage. It not only achieves being a real-time incentive in both the recruiting and sensing stages but also improves the utility of sensing data.

Major depression impairs incentive processing: evidence from the heart and the face.

The present study tested the hypothesis of a differential pattern of reward and punishment responsiveness in depression measuring effort mobilization during anticipation and facial expressions during consumption. Twenty patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) and 20 control participants worked on a memory task under neutral, reward, and punishment instructions. Effort mobilization was operationalized as cardiovascular reactivity, while facial expressions were measured by facial electromyographic reactivity. Self-report measures for each phase complemented this multi-method approach. During anticipation, MDD patients showed weaker cardiac pre-ejection period (PEP) reactivity to reward and blunted self-reported wanting, but weaker PEP reactivity to punishment and unchanged self-reported avoidance motivation. During consumption, MDD patients showed reduced zygomaticus major muscle reactivity to reward and blunted self-reported liking, but unchanged corrugator supercilii muscle reactivity to punishment and unchanged self-reported disliking. These findings demonstrate reduced effort mobilization during reward and punishment anticipation in depression. Moreover, they show reduced facial expressions during reward consumption and unchanged facial expressions during punishment consumption in depression.

The time course of incentive processing in anticipatory and consummatory anhedonia

BackgroundAnhedonia, the reduced capacity to experience pleasure, has long been regarded as a cardinal symptom in depression and schizophrenia. Recent evidence highlights that anhedonia is not a single construct but consists of an anticipatory component and a consummatory component, which is captured by the Temporal Experience of Pleasure Scale (TEPS). The current event-related potential study examined the electrophysiological underpinnings of anticipatory and consummatory aspects of anhedonia as assessed by the TEPS in a non-clinical sample. MethodsEEG was recorded during both anticipatory and consummatory phases of incentive processing in an anticipatory-anhedonia (ANT) group, a consummatory-anhedonia (CON) group, and a control (CNT) group selected from a large sample based on their TEPS scores. ResultsThe ANT relative to the CON group exhibited a reduced cue-P3 during the anticipatory phase, a less positive feedback-related negativity (FRN) and a blunted feedback P3 (fb-P3) during the consummatory phase. Moreover, correlation results revealed a dissociation between anticipatory and consummatory anhedonia, which occurred in an unexpected way such that higher levels of anticipatory anhedonia were associated with reduced fb-P3 amplitudes whereas higher levels of consummatory anhedonia with enhanced cue-P3 and FRN amplitudes. LimitationThe sample size for each group was relatively small. ConclusionsAnticipatory and consummatory anhedonia as measured by the TEPS might be driven by abnormal motivational salience, which was represented by the cue-P3 during the anticipatory phase and the FRN and fb-P3 during the consummatory phase of incentive processing.

The Influence of Different Kinds of Incentives on Decision-Making and Cognitive Control in Adolescent Development: A Review of Behavioral and Neuroscientific Studies.

A number of recent hypothetical models on adolescent development take a dual-systems perspective and propose an imbalance in the maturation of neural systems underlying reward-driven and control-related behavior. In particular, such models suggest that the relative dominance of the early emerging subcortical reward system over the later emerging prefrontal-guided control system leads to higher risk-taking and sensation-seeking behavior in mid-adolescents. Here, we will review recent empirical evidence from behavioral and neuroscientific studies examining interactions between these systems and showing that empirical evidence in support for the view of a higher sensitivity to rewards in mid-adolescents is rather mixed. One possible explanation for this may be the use of different kinds and amounts of incentives across studies. We will therefore include developmental studies comparing the differential influence of primary and secondary incentives, as well as those investigating within the class of secondary incentives the effects of monetary, cognitive, or social incentives. We hypothesized that the value of receiving sweets or sours, winning or losing small or large amounts of money, and being accepted or rejected from a peer group may also changes across development, and thereby might modulate age differences in decision-making and cognitive control. Our review revealed that although developmental studies directly comparing different kinds of incentives are rather scarce, results of various studies rather consistently showed only minor age differences in the impact of incentives on the behavioral level. In tendency, adolescents were more sensitive to higher amounts of incentives and larger uncertainty of receiving them, as well as to social incentives such as the presence of peers observing them. Electrophysiological studies showed that processing efficiency was enhanced during anticipation of incentives and receiving them, irrespective of incentive type. Again, we found no strong evidence for interactions with age across studies. Finally, functional brain imaging studies revealed evidence for overlapping brain regions activated during processing of primary and secondary incentives, as well as social and non-social incentives. Adolescents recruited similar reward-related and control-related brain regions as adults did, but to a different degree. Implications for future research will be discussed.

T94. Intrinsic Organization of the Salience Network While Processing Incentive Motivation and its Influence on Motivational Behavior

Incentive motivation is known to be largely influenced by reinforcement's saliency. However, the contribution of the known intrinsic salience network to incentive processing was not studied at the network-level, nor was its contribution to modulation of motivational behavior.

Sex differences in the neural underpinnings of social and monetary incentive processing during adolescence.

The brain's reward system undergoes major changes during adolescence, and an increased reactivity to social and nonsocial incentives has been described as a typical feature during this transitional period. Little is known whether there are sex differences in the brain's responsiveness to social or monetary incentives during adolescence. The aim of this event-related potential (ERP) study was to compare the neurophysiological underpinnings of monetary and social incentive processing in adolescent boys versus girls. During ERP recording, 38 adolescents (21 females, 17 males; 13-18 years) completed an incentive delay task comprising (a) a reward versus punishment condition and (b) social versus monetary incentives. The stimulus-preceding negativity (SPN) was recorded during anticipation of reward and punishment, and the feedback P3 (fP3) along with the feedback-related negativity (FRN) after reward/punishment delivery. During anticipation of social punishment, adolescent boys compared with girls exhibited a reduced SPN. After delivery, male adolescents exhibited higher fP3 amplitudes to monetary compared with social incentives, whereas fP3 amplitudes in girls were comparable across incentive types. Moreover, whereas in boys fP3 responses were higher in rewards than in punishment trials, no such difference was evident in girls. The results indicate that adolescent boys show a reduced neural responsivity in the prospect of social punishment. Moreover, the findings imply that, once the incentive is obtained, adolescent boys attribute a relatively enhanced motivational significance to monetary incentives and show a relative hyposensitivity to punishment. The findings might contribute to our understanding of sex-specific vulnerabilities to problem behaviors related to incentive processing during adolescence.

Incentives facilitate developmental improvement in inhibitory control by modulating control-related networks

Adolescence is a period of heightened sensitivity to incentives and relatively weak cognitive control, which may contribute to risky behaviors. Studies of brain activity have generally identified greater activation of the ventral striatum to rewards and less activation of prefrontal regions during control tasks in adolescents compared to adults. Little is known, however, about age-related changes in the functional brain networks underlying incentive processing and cognitive control. This cross-sectional study characterized the effects of incentives on inhibitory control during an oculomotor task using whole-brain functional connectivity analyses. During an fMRI scan, one hundred forty typically developing individuals completed an incentivized antisaccade task consisting of incentive cue, preparation, and response phases. We found that task modulation of control networks increased gradually from childhood to adulthood, whereas a network including ventral striatum and ventromedial prefrontal cortex displayed an adolescent-specific peak in response to the receipt of outcomes, consistent with dual-systems models. Notably, however, greater modulation of salience and motor networks during the preparation phase mediated age-related improvements in antisaccade accuracy, whereas adolescent enhancement of value-related circuitry did not. Relative to neutral cues, both reward and loss cues enhanced task-related connectivity of the salience network when preparing to inhibit a saccade. Altogether, our findings suggest that incentives facilitate inhibitory control by enhancing the salience of one's responses and that over development, the recruitment of functional networks involved in saliency and motor preparation supports better performance.

Protracted motivational dopamine-related deficits following adolescence sugar overconsumption

Adolescence represents a critical period characterized by major neurobiological changes. Chronic stimulation of the reward system during adolescence might constitute an important factor of vulnerability to pathological development. Increasing evidences suggest that adolescent overconsumption of sweet palatable foods impact reward-based processes. However, the neurobiological bases of these deficits remain poorly understood. Previous studies have demonstrated motivational deficits for palatable foods after sweet diet exposure during adolescence that might involve the dopamine (DA) system, a central actor in incentive processes. In the present study, the impact of adolescent sugar overconsumption on the sensitivity of the DA system was tested using pharmacological (Experiment 1) and receptor expression approaches (Experiment 2). Adolescent rats received free and continuous access to 5% sucrose solution from post-natal day 30–46. At adulthood, the functionality of the DA system in motivational processes was tested using systemic injections of specific DA receptors D1R or D2R agonists and antagonists during a motivation-dependent progressive ratio task (Experiment 1). Sucrose-exposed rats showed a lower motivation for saccharin and a decreased sensitivity to the effects of both D1R and D2R stimulation and blockade. In Experiment 2, Sucrose-exposed animals presented a lower expression of both D1R and D2R in the nucleus accumbens, a central brain region for incentive processes, but not in dorsal striatum or prefrontal cortex. These findings highlight the impact of sucrose overconsumption during adolescence on DA system that may support deficits in reward-related disorders.

Development of omnidirectional A0 mode EMAT employing a concentric permanent magnet pairs with opposite polarity for plate inspection

This work presents an omnidirectional electromagnetic acoustic transducer (EMAT) for generating and receiving A0 mode of Lamb waves in plate structures. The proposed EMAT is composed of a spiral meander coil (SMC) and a new concentric permanent magnet pairs with opposite polarity (CPMP-OP) for enhancing the generation and detection of A0 mode. A finite element model was established to simulate the directions of the static magnetic field produced by the permanent magnets and the incentive process of guided waves. To verify the performance of the EMAT, several experiments were performed. Firstly, we experimentally verified that the developed EMAT could generate and receive a pure single A0 mode omnidirectionally. Then, the relationship between the frequency response characteristic of the developed EMAT and the interval l (the distance between the two adjacent annular wires of the SMC) were explored. Furthermore, the circumferential consistency of the transducer was well demonstrated. Finally, the sensing performance of the developed omnidirectional A0 mode EMAT employing a CPMP-OP was compared with that of EMAT with different structures of coils and permanent magnets. The experimental results indicated that the developed omnidirectional A0 mode EMAT employing a CPMP-OP could enhance the signals of the A0 mode.

Does size matter? An examination of problem gamblers' skin conductance responses to large and small magnitude rewards.

Previous research has shown that individuals with substance use disorder equally value small and large magnitude rewards. This has led some researchers to conceptualize the problematic behaviors associated with this disorder as being, at least in part, caused by a deficiency in processing reward stimuli. Considering the documented similarities between substance use disorder and disordered gambling, the current study sought to investigate whether problem gamblers also display such an aberrant pattern of incentive processing. Skin conductance responses (SCRs) to small and large magnitude wins were recorded from 16 problem gamblers (PGs) and 16 healthy controls (HCs) while they completed a computer-simulated electronic gaming machine task. The results show that, while large wins elicited greater SCRs compared to small wins for the HC group, no difference in SCR amplitude was found following large and small wins in the PG group. These findings suggest that problem gamblers may be less effective at evaluating the value of incentives, and are discussed in terms of relevant theoretical frameworks.

Four Mechanistic Models of Peer Influence on Adolescent Cannabis Use.

Most adolescents begin exploring cannabis in peer contexts, but the neural mechanisms that underlie peer influence on adolescent cannabis use are still unknown. This theoretical overview elucidates the intersecting roles of neural function and peer factors in cannabis use in adolescents. Novel paradigms using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in adolescents have identified distinct neural mechanisms of risk decision-making and incentive processing in peer contexts, centered on reward-motivation and affect regulatory neural networks; these findings inform a theoretical model of peer-driven cannabis use decisions in adolescents. We propose four "mechanistic profiles" of social facilitation of cannabis use in adolescents: (1) peer influence as the primary driver of use; (2) cannabis exploration as the primary driver, which may be enhanced in peer contexts; (3) social anxiety; and (4) negative peer experiences. Identification of "neural targets" involved in motivating cannabis use may inform clinicians about which treatment strategies work best in adolescents with cannabis use problems, and via which social and neurocognitive processes.

Research on Methods of Curriculum Design Guided by Problems

Focus on the learners to master such curriculum knowledge as comprehensive content, logic process and learning effect, a two-way course system was put forward with creative as the center to meet with changeable, continuous and fast demands for knowledge expansion. The method established a two-way course process with the problem as the guide, and to ensure the sustainable and efficient expansion in knowledge content. Through the learning of concept innovation and logic guide, innovative approaches were organically integrated with curriculum design. The results of five consecutive teaching years show that through problems orientation and a two-way interactively incentive effect, autonomous learning fully met the curriculum requirements of innovation and design. The rapid feedback to incentive process ensured students' autonomous learning. Thus, the course has a two-way selective in content to strengthen the transform strength for learners in learning the curriculum concept and logic knowledge. The elasticity content verified the effectiveness of this method.

Impact of the Patent Right Regime on Access to Medicine in Developing Countries

The exclusivity of the right conferred on a patent right holder operates as a temporary monopoly because competition by the production of the same invention or the adoption of an incentive process, without the permission of the right holder, is prohibited for the period that the patent right subsists. Given the fact that the end result of a patent right is a restriction on the introduction of a competitive patented product into the market, prices of patented pharmaceutical products tend to increase. The effect of a patent on the price of patented medicine and the prohibition of the production of cheaper generic versions without the license of the patent right holder has been associated with the problem of access to medicine, especially in developing countries. The question this paper seeks to address is whether patents constitute a hindrance to access to medicine in developing countries. This paper argues that despite the theoretical justification for the patent system, discussed in the first section of the paper, patent right hinders access to medicine, especially in developing countries. But the approach of the rules developed under the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Properties(TRIPs) agreement, balances the interest of pharmaceutical companies and the public, by creating flexibilities under which patented inventions can be made accessible to the public.

Beyond dual systems: A genetically-informed, latent factor model of behavioral and self-report measures related to adolescent risk-taking

The dual systems model posits that adolescent risk-taking results from an imbalance between a cognitive control system and an incentive processing system. Researchers interested in understanding the development of adolescent risk-taking use a diverse array of behavioral and self-report measures to index cognitive control and incentive processing. It is currently unclear whether different measures commonly interpreted as indicators of the same psychological construct do, in fact, tap the same underlying dimension of individual differences. In a diverse sample of 810 adolescent twins and triplets (M age=15.9years, SD=1.4years) from the Texas Twin Project, we investigated the factor structure of fifteen self-report and task-based measures relevant to adolescent risk-taking. These measures can be organized into four factors, which we labeled premeditation, fearlessness, cognitive dyscontrol, and reward seeking. Most behavioral measures contained large amounts of task-specific variance; however, most genetic variance in each measure was shared with other measures of the corresponding factor. Behavior genetic analyses further indicated that genetic influences on cognitive dyscontrol overlapped nearly perfectly with genetic influences on IQ (rA=−0.91). These findings underscore the limitations of using single laboratory tasks in isolation, and indicate that the study of adolescent risk taking will benefit from applying multimethod approaches.

Wanting and liking in dysphoria: Cardiovascular and facial EMG responses during incentive processing

Theories and research on depression point to reduced responsiveness during reward anticipation and in part also during punishment anticipation. They also suggest weaker affective responses to reward consumption and unchanged affective responses to punishment consumption. However, studies investigating incentive anticipation using effort mobilization and incentive consumption using facial expressions are scarce. The present studies tested reward and punishment responsiveness in a subclinically depressed sample, manipulating a monetary reward (Study 1) and a monetary punishment (Study 2). Effort mobilization was operationalized as cardiovascular reactivity, while facial expressions were measured by facial electromyographic reactivity. Compared to nondysphorics, dysphorics showed reduced pre-ejection period (PEP) reactivity and blunted self-reported wanting during reward anticipation but reduced PEP reactivity and normal self-reported wanting during punishment anticipation. Compared to nondysphorics, dysphorics showed reduced zygomaticus major muscle reactivity and blunted self-reported liking during reward consumption but normal corrugator supercilii muscle reactivity and normal self-reported disliking during punishment consumption.

Attentional Bias for Pain and Sex, and Automatic Appraisals of Sexual Penetration: Differential Patterns in Dyspareunia vs Vaginismus?

IntroductionCurrent information processing models propose that heightened attention bias for sex-related threats (eg, pain) and lowered automatic incentive processes (“wanting”) may play an important role in the impairment of sexual arousal and the development of sexual dysfunctions such as genitopelvic pain/penetration disorder (GPPPD). Differential threat and incentive processing may also help explain the stronger persistence of coital avoidance in women with vaginismus compared to women with dyspareunia. AimsAs the first aim, we tested if women with GPPPD show (1) heightened attention for pain and sex, and (2) heightened threat and lower incentive associations with sexual penetration. Second, we examined whether the stronger persistence of coital avoidance in vaginismus vs dyspareunia might be explained by a stronger attentional bias or more dysfunctional automatic threat/incentive associations. MethodsWomen with lifelong vaginismus (n = 37), dyspareunia (n = 29), and a no-symptoms comparison group (n = 51) completed a visual search task to assess attentional bias, and single target implicit-association tests to measure automatic sex-threat and sex-wanting associations. ResultsThere were no group differences in attentional bias or automatic associations. Correlational analysis showed that slowed detection of sex stimuli and stronger automatic threat associations were related to lowered sexual arousal. ConclusionThe findings do not corroborate the view that attentional bias for pain or sex contributes to coital pain, or that differences in coital avoidance may be explained by differences in attentional bias or automatic threat/incentive associations. However, the correlational findings are consistent with the view that automatic threat associations and impaired attention for sex stimuli may interfere with the generation of sexual arousal.

Cocaine addiction is associated with abnormal prefrontal function, increased striatal connectivity and sensitivity to monetary incentives, and decreased connectivity outside the human reward circuit.

Cocaine addiction has been associated with increased sensitivity of the human reward circuit to drug-related stimuli. However, the capacity of non-drug incentives to engage this network is poorly understood. Here, we characterized the functional sensitivity to monetary incentives and the structural integrity of the human reward circuit in abstinent cocaine-dependent (CD) patients and their matched controls. We assessed the BOLD response to monetary gains and losses in 30 CD patients and 30 healthy controls performing a lottery task in a magnetic resonance imaging scanner. We measured brain gray matter volume (GMV) using voxel-based morphometry and white matter microstructure using voxel-based fractional anisotropy (FA). Functional data showed that, after monetary incentives, CD patients exhibited higher activation in the ventral striatum than controls. Furthermore, we observed an inverted BOLD response pattern in the prefrontal cortex, with activity being highest after unexpected high gains and lowest after losses. Patients showed increased GMV in the caudate and the orbitofrontal cortex, increased white matter FA in the orbito-striatal pathway but decreased FA in antero-posterior association bundles. Abnormal activation in the prefrontal cortex correlated with GMV and FA increases in the orbitofrontal cortex. While functional abnormalities in the ventral striatum were inversely correlated with abstinence duration, structural alterations were not. In conclusion, results suggest abnormal incentive processing in CD patients with high salience for rewards and punishments in subcortical structures but diminished prefrontal control after adverse outcomes. They further suggest that hypertrophy and hyper-connectivity within the reward circuit, to the expense of connectivity outside this network, characterize cocaine addiction.

Qualitative evaluation of a novel contingency management‐related intervention for patients receiving supervised injectable opioid treatment

To evaluate a novel contingency management (CM)-related intervention for people experiencing complex drug problems, thereby increasing understanding of CM implementation in real-world settings. Objectives are to provide new insights into (i) how context influences intervention delivery; (ii) aspects of intervention delivery that influence outcomes; and (iii) intervention outcomes. Qualitative realist evaluation of a novel CM-related intervention: conditional budgets (CB). Supervised injectable opioid treatment (IOT) clinic in England (May 2014-March 2015). Twenty IOT clinic patients (14 men; six women); 10 IOT clinic staff (seven men; three women). Semi-structured interviews systematically coded relating to knowledge and views of the intervention, experiences of delivering/receiving the intervention, and effectiveness of the intervention. Personal budgets provided to patients who reduced their supervised IOT while demonstrating ongoing stability. (i) Contextual factors influencing intervention delivery included patient motivation; clarity of intervention information; prior trust in the treatment system; patient and staff involvement in intervention design; stability of the treatment setting. (ii) Aspects of delivery influencing outcomes included transparency of the eligibility criteria, rules and operating processes; rule enforcement; continued verbal information about the intervention; speed of incentive processing and receipt. (iii) Reduced drug use was difficult to attribute to CBs, as patients who did well were those most motivated to change before the intervention started. Unintended outcomes were positive (improved patient psychological wellbeing, staff job satisfaction, staff/patient relationships) and negative (patient relapse, increased staff work-load, tensions in clinic relationships). A 'qualitative realist' evaluation of a contingency management intervention to help address complex substance use disorder problems suggests that the programmes need to have stakeholder input, implement consistent eligibility criteria, rules and processes and be introduced into stable treatment settings where relationships are trusting and patients and staff feel secure.