Differential effects of social versus monetary incentives on inhibitory control under acute inflammation

While the impact of chronic, low-grade inflammation on cognitive functioning is documented in the context of neurodegenerative disease, less is known about the association between acute increases in inflammation and cognitive functioning in daily life. This study investigated how changes in interleukin-6 (IL-6) levels were associated with performance on an inhibitory control task, the go/no-go task. We further examined whether the opportunity to earn different incentive types (social or monetary) and magnitudes (high or low) was associated with differential performance on the task, depending on IL-6 levels. Using a within-participant design, individuals completed an incentivized go/no-go task before and after receiving the annual influenza vaccine. Multilevel logistic regressions were performed on the trial-level data (N_obs = 30,528). For no-go trials, we did not find significant associations in IL-6 reactivity and changes in trial accuracy between sessions. For go trials, we found significant differences in the associations between IL-6 reactivity and changes in accuracy as a function of the incentive condition. Notably, greater IL-6 reactivity was consistently associated with fewer omission errors (i.e., greater accuracy on go trials) on high-magnitude social incentives (i.e., viewing a picture of a close-other) when compared to both low-magnitude social and high-magnitude monetary incentives. Together, these results suggest that mild fluctuations in inflammation might alter the valuation of an incentive, and possibly a shift toward devoting greater attentional resources when a large social incentive is on the line. Overall, this study sheds light on how everyday, low-grade fluctuations in inflammation may influence cognitive abilities essential for daily life and effective inhibitory control.