Top-down response suppression mitigates action tendencies triggered by a motivating stimulus

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Psychology
• Behavioral Science

Background:

• Motivating stimuli can trigger action tendencies leading to unwanted behaviors.
• Effective self-control is crucial for healthy functioning.
• Laboratory models for studying self-control are limited.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a novel laboratory task to model self-control.
• To investigate the neural mechanisms underlying response control in the presence of motivational stimuli.
• To provide a richer model of self-control compared to existing paradigms.

Main Methods:

• A novel instrumental conditioning task was designed with thirsty human participants.
• Participants performed Go trials (respond for juice) and NoGo trials (withhold response).
• Conditioned stimuli (CS+ rewarded, CS- unrewarded) were presented; transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) measured motor activity.

Main Results:

• Motivational stimuli (CS+) increased motor activity and instrumental responding in Go trials.
• Successful response inhibition (NoGo trials) showed selective motor suppression for CS+.
• Motor suppression in NoGo trials was specific to the effector used to obtain reward.

Conclusions:

• Motivational stimuli can effectively trigger response suppression.
• The developed task offers a robust laboratory model for studying self-control.
• Findings advance our understanding of the neural basis of self-control and behavioral inhibition.