Lecture Blog #1: Elizabeth Tricomi on the Contextual Influences on Value Representation in the Human Brain

This is rather late in coming as I had attended the lecture and forgotten about my notes until now. But nevertheless, here it is, my first blog entry on a guest lecture.

In her talk, Dr. Elizabeth Tricomi discussed how different contextual factors such as goals, experience, value, probability of reward, and social preferences influenced individual behavior.

She talked in detail about her research on the influence these contextual factors had on the brain's reward circuitry. Using fMRI, she has shown that rewards earned from goal-directed actions lead to activation of the caudate nucleus, which is part of the brain's reward circuitry. However, with more experience (a contextual factor), activity in the caudate nucleus changes because the behavior, before a means of attaining a goal, now becomes a habitual cue-triggered habitual response. Thus in order for the reward circuitry to activate, the actions taken must be goal-relevant--hence, context matters.

From her research, Dr. Tricomi concluded that the brain's reward pathway must integrate contextual information so that the individual can make circumstantial decisions and perform complex behaviors as influenced by the context.

Dr. Tricomi's talk was very interesting as her approach to the reward system in the brain is much different from the typical textbook explanation. We are taught that reward and punishment are mediated by a portion of the brain depending on pleasure and want and like concepts. However, we don't often consider reward in different contexts, which would definitely influence one's perception depending on the circumstances.



-Alice Huang