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Differential Monetary Rewards During Category Learning Increase Activity in Striatal Regions
Carol A Seger1,2, Lixue Cai1, Jianping Chen1
1Center for Studies of Psychological Application, School of Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China.
The European Journal of Neuroscience
|March 10, 2025
Summary
This study shows that rewards increase activity in the corticostriatal networks for human categorization tasks. This effect was observed in both early learning and trained categorization, highlighting reward
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Science
- Decision Making
Background:
- Corticostriatal networks are crucial for human categorization learning.
- The influence of reward on these networks during categorization is not fully understood.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how reward presence affects neural activity in corticostriatal networks during categorization.
- To compare brain activity between rewarded and non-rewarded trials in a categorization task.
Main Methods:
- Participants learned to categorize fractal images with varying monetary rewards for correct performance.
- Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to measure neural activity in the striatum and cortical regions.
- Activity was analyzed during both novel stimulus learning and extensively trained categorization phases.
Main Results:
- Rewarded stimuli showed significantly greater neural activity in the caudate nucleus and putamen compared to non-rewarded stimuli.
- Reward enhanced activity in cortical areas involved in categorization, including the intraparietal sulcus (IPS), salience network, and visual processing regions.
- These reward effects were consistent across early learning and trained phases of the categorization task.
Conclusions:
- Reward significantly modulates neural activity within corticostriatal circuits during human categorization.
- Reward integration in the striatum influences both learning and performance in categorization tasks.
- Findings provide insights into the neural mechanisms underlying the interplay between reward and categorization.
