Neural Basis for Economic Saving Strategies in Human Amygdala-Prefrontal Reward Circuits.
Published version
Peer-reviewed
Repository URI
Repository DOI
Change log
Authors
Abstract
Economic saving is an elaborate behavior in which the goal of a reward in the future directs planning and decision-making in the present. Here, we measured neural activity while subjects formed simple economic saving strategies to accumulate rewards and then executed their strategies through choice sequences of self-defined lengths. Before the initiation of a choice sequence, prospective activations in the amygdala predicted subjects' internal saving plans and their value up to two minutes before a saving goal was achieved. The valuation component of this planning activity persisted during execution of the saving strategy and predicted subjects' economic behavior across different tasks and testing days. Functionally coupled amygdala and prefrontal cortex activities encoded distinct planning components that signaled the transition from saving strategy formation to execution and reflected individual differences in saving behavior. Our findings identify candidate neural mechanisms for economic saving in amygdala and prefrontal cortex and suggest a novel planning function for the human amygdala in directing strategic behavior toward self-determined future rewards.
Description
Keywords
Journal Title
Conference Name
Journal ISSN
1879-0445
Volume Title
Publisher
Publisher DOI
Sponsorship
Wellcome Trust (095495/Z/11/Z)