Avoiding monetary loss: A human habenula functional MRI ultra-high field study.
Authors
Weidacker, Kathrin
Kim, Seung-Goo
Nord, Camilla L
Rua, Catarina
Rodgers, Christopher T
Publication Date
2021-09Journal Title
Cortex
ISSN
0010-9452
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Volume
142
Pages
62-73
Language
eng
Type
Article
This Version
AM
Physical Medium
Print-Electronic
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Weidacker, K., Kim, S., Nord, C. L., Rua, C., Rodgers, C. T., & Voon, V. (2021). Avoiding monetary loss: A human habenula functional MRI ultra-high field study.. Cortex, 142 62-73. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2021.05.013
Abstract
A number of convergent human neuroimaging and animal studies suggest that habenula neurons fire in anticipation of non-rewarding outcomes, and suppress their firing in anticipation of rewarding outcomes. This normative function of the habenula appears disrupted in depression, and may be critical to the anti-depressant effects of ketamine. However, studying habenula functionality in humans using standard 3 T MRI is inherently limited by its small size. We employed ultra-high field (7 T) fMRI to investigate habenular activity in eighteen healthy volunteers during a Monetary Incentive Delay Task, focussing on loss avoidance, monetary loss and neutral events. We assessed neural activation in the field of view (FOV) in addition to ROI-based habenula-specific activity and generalized task-dependent functional connectivity. Whole FOV results indicated substantial neural differences between monetary loss and neutral outcomes, as well as between loss avoidance and neutral outcomes. Habenula-specific analyses showed bilateral deactivation during loss avoidance, compared to other outcomes. This first investigation into the habenula's role during loss avoidance revealed that the left habenula further differentiated between loss avoidance and monetary loss. Functional connectivity between the right habenula and the ipsilateral hippocampus and subcallosal cingulate (regions implicated in memory and depression pathophysiology) was enhanced when anticipating potential losses compared to anticipating neutral outcomes. Our findings suggest that the human habenula responds most strongly to outcomes of loss avoidance when compared to neutral and monetary losses, suggesting a role for the habenula in both reward and aversive processing. This has critical relevance to understanding the pathophysiology of habenula function in mood and other neuropsychiatric disorders, as well as the mechanism of action of habenula-targeting antidepressants such as ketamine.
Keywords
Habenula, Animals, Humans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Motivation, Reward, Anticipation, Psychological, Neuroimaging
Relationships
Is supplemented by: https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.66358
Sponsorship
This research was supported by the NIHR Cambridge
Biomedical Research Centre (BRC-1215-20014). VV is funded by a Medical Research Council Senior
Fellowship (MR/P008747/1). CLN is funded by the Medical Research Council (Grant Reference:
SUAG/043 G101400). CTR is funded by a Sir Henry Dale Fellowship from the Wellcome Trust and the
Royal Society [098436/Z/12/B]. The 7T MRI scanner was funded by the University of Cambridge, the
Medical Research Council (MR/M008983/1), and the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre.
The views expressed are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the
Department of Health and Social Care.
Funder references
Wellcome Trust (Unknown)
Wellcome Trust (098436/Z/12/B)
Medical Research Council (MR/P008747/1)
MRC (Unknown)
Medical Research Council (MR/M008983/1)
MRC (MR/M008983/1)
Medical Research Council (MC_UU_00005/4)
National Institute for Health Research (IS-BRC-1215-20014)
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2021.05.013
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/322765
Rights
All rights reserved
Licence:
http://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved
Statistics
Total file downloads (since January 2020). For more information on metrics see the
IRUS guide.