The neural signature of the decision value of future pain

SignificanceWe often willingly experience pain to reach a goal. However, potential pain can also prevent reckless action. How do we consider future pain when deciding on the best course of action? To date, the precise neural mechanisms underlying the valuation of future pain remain unknown. Using fu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 2022-06, Vol.119 (23), p.e2119931119-e2119931119
Main Authors: Coll, Michel-Pierre, Slimani, Hocine, Woo, Choong-Wan, Wager, Tor D, Rainville, Pierre, Vachon-Presseau, Étienne, Roy, Mathieu
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biological Sciences
Brain
Brain - diagnostic imaging
Brain Mapping
Decision analysis
Decision Making
Emotions
Executive function
Functional magnetic resonance imaging
Humans
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Mental task performance
Neural coding
Pain
Pattern analysis
Pictures
Representations
Reward
Social Sciences
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Summary:SignificanceWe often willingly experience pain to reach a goal. However, potential pain can also prevent reckless action. How do we consider future pain when deciding on the best course of action? To date, the precise neural mechanisms underlying the valuation of future pain remain unknown. Using functional MRI, we derive a whole-brain signature of the value of future pain capable of predicting participants' choices to accept pain in exchange for a reward. We show that this signature is characterized by a distributed pattern of activity with clear contributions from structures encoding reward and salience, notably the ventral and dorsal striatum. These findings highlight how the brain assigns value to future pain when choosing the best course of action.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.2119931119