Reward Motivation Enhances Task Coding in Frontoparietal Cortex

Reward motivation often enhances task performance, but the neural mechanisms underlying such cognitive enhancement remain unclear. Here, we used a multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) approach to test the hypothesis that motivation-related enhancement of cognitive control results from improved encod...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. 1991) N.Y. 1991), 2016-04, Vol.26 (4), p.1647-1659
Main Authors: Etzel, Joset A, Cole, Michael W, Zacks, Jeffrey M, Kay, Kendrick N, Braver, Todd S
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Brain Mapping - methods
Cues
Executive Function - physiology
Female
Frontal Lobe - physiology
Humans
Magnetic Resonance Imaging - methods
Male
Motivation - physiology
Neural Pathways - physiology
Original
Parietal Lobe - physiology
Psychomotor Performance
Reward
Visual Perception - physiology
Young Adult
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Summary:Reward motivation often enhances task performance, but the neural mechanisms underlying such cognitive enhancement remain unclear. Here, we used a multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA) approach to test the hypothesis that motivation-related enhancement of cognitive control results from improved encoding and representation of task set information. Participants underwent two fMRI sessions of cued task switching, the first under baseline conditions, and the second with randomly intermixed reward incentive and no-incentive trials. Information about the upcoming task could be successfully decoded from cue-related activation patterns in a set of frontoparietal regions typically associated with task control. More critically, MVPA classifiers trained on the baseline session had significantly higher decoding accuracy on incentive than non-incentive trials, with decoding improvement mediating reward-related enhancement of behavioral performance. These results strongly support the hypothesis that reward motivation enhances cognitive control, by improving the discriminability of task-relevant information coded and maintained in frontoparietal brain regions.
ISSN:1047-3211
1460-2199
DOI:10.1093/cercor/bhu327