Cookies on this website

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you click 'Accept all cookies' we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies and you won't see this message again. If you click 'Reject all non-essential cookies' only necessary cookies providing core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility will be enabled. Click 'Find out more' for information on how to change your cookie settings.

Lack of physical engagement, productivity, and initiative-so-called "behavioral apathy"--is a common problem with significant impact, both personal and economic. Here, we investigate whether there might be a biological basis to such lack of motivation using a new effort and reward-based decision-making paradigm, combined with functional and diffusion-weighted imaging. We hypothesized that behavioral apathy in otherwise healthy people might be associated with differences in brain systems underlying either motivation to act (specifically in effort and reward-based decision-making) or in action processing (transformation of an intention into action). The results demonstrate that behavioral apathy is associated with increased effort sensitivity as well as greater recruitment of neural systems involved in action anticipation: supplementary motor area (SMA) and cingulate motor zones. In addition, decreased structural and functional connectivity between anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and SMA were associated with increased behavioral apathy. These findings reveal that effort sensitivity and translation of intentions into actions might make a critical contribution to behavioral apathy. We propose a mechanism whereby inefficient communication between ACC and SMA might lead to increased physiological cost--and greater effort sensitivity--for action initiation in more apathetic people.

Original publication

DOI

10.1093/cercor/bhv247

Type

Journal article

Journal

Cereb Cortex

Publication Date

02/2016

Volume

26

Pages

807 - 819

Keywords

action initiation, anterior cingulate cortex, cingulum bundle, motivation, supplementary motor area, Adult, Apathy, Brain Mapping, Cues, Decision Making, Feedback, Sensory, Female, Humans, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Individuality, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Motor Cortex, Neural Pathways, Photic Stimulation, Psychophysics, Reward, Self Report, White Matter, Young Adult