Altered neural anticipation of reward and loss but not receipt in adolescents with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

BACKGROUND: Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is characterized by persistent, unwanted thoughts and repetitive actions. Such repetitive thoughts and/or behaviors may be reinforced either by reducing anxiety or by avoiding a potential threat or harm, and thus may be rewarding to the individual. The possible involvement of the reward system in the symptomatology of OCD is supported by studies showing altered reward processing in reward-related regions, such as the ventral striatum (VS) and the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), in adults with OCD. However, it is not clear whether this also applies to adolescents with OCD. METHODS: Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, two sessions were conducted focusing on the anticipation and receipt of monetary reward (1) or loss (2), each contrasted to a verbal (control) condition. In each session, adolescents with OCD (n1=31/n2=26) were compared with typically developing (TD) controls (n1=33/ n2=31), all aged 10-19 years, during the anticipation and feedback phase of an adapted Monetary Incentive Delay task. RESULTS: Data revealed a hyperactivation of the VS, but not the OFC, when anticipating both monetary reward and loss in the OCD compared to the TD group. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that aberrant neural reward and loss processing in OCD is associated with greater motivation to gain or maintain a reward but not with the actual receipt. The greater degree of reward 'wanting' may contribute to adolescents with OCD repeating certain actions more and more frequently, which then become habits (i.e., OCD symptomatology).

White matter integrity of right frontostriatal circuit predicts internet addiction severity among internet gamers.

Excessive use of the internet, which is a typical scenario of self-control failure, could lead to potential consequences such as anxiety, depression, and diminished academic performance. However, the underlying neuropsychological mechanisms remain poorly understood. This study aims to investigate the structural basis of self-control and internet addiction. In a cohort of 96 internet gamers, we examined the relationships among grey matter volume and white matter integrity within the frontostriatal circuits and internet addiction severity, as well as self-control measures. The results showed a significant and negative correlation between dACC grey matter volume and internet addiction severity (p < 0.001), but not with self-control. Subsequent tractography from the dACC to the bilateral ventral striatum (VS) was conducted. The fractional anisotropy (FA) and radial diffusivity of dACC-right VS pathway was negatively (p = 0.011) and positively (p = 0.020) correlated with internet addiction severity, respectively, and the FA was also positively correlated with self-control (p = 0.036). These associations were not observed for the dACC-left VS pathway. Further mediation analysis demonstrated a significant complete mediation effect of self-control on the relationship between FA of the dACC-right VS pathway and internet addiction severity. Our findings suggest that the dACC-right VS pathway is a critical neural substrate for both internet addiction and self-control. Deficits in this pathway may lead to impaired self-regulation over internet usage, exacerbating the severity of internet addiction.

Exposure to community violence as a mechanism linking neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage and neural responses to reward.

A growing literature links socioeconomic disadvantage and adversity to brain function, including disruptions in reward processing. Less research has examined exposure to community violence (ECV) as a specific adversity related to differences in reward-related brain activation, despite the prevalence of community violence exposure for those living in disadvantaged contexts. The current study tested whether ECV was associated with reward-related ventral striatum (VS) activation after accounting for familial factors associated with differences in reward-related activation (e.g. parenting and family income). Moreover, we tested whether ECV is a mechanism linking socioeconomic disadvantage to reward-related activation in the VS. We utilized data from 444 adolescent twins sampled from birth records and residing in neighborhoods with above-average levels of poverty. ECV was associated with greater reward-related VS activation, and the association remained after accounting for family-level markers of disadvantage. We identified an indirect pathway in which socioeconomic disadvantage predicted greater reward-related activation via greater ECV, over and above family-level adversity. These findings highlight the unique impact of community violence exposure on reward processing and provide a mechanism through which socioeconomic disadvantage may shape brain function.

Gender Dysphoria and Sexual Euphoria: A Bayesian Perspective on the Influence of Gender-Affirming Hormone Therapy on Sexual Arousal.

Self-reported sexual orientation of transgender individuals occasionally changes over transition. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we tested the hypothesis that neural and behavioral patterns of sexual arousal in transgender individuals would shift from the assigned to the experienced gender (e.g., trans women's responses becoming more dissimilar to those of cis men and more similar to those of cis women). To this aim, trans women (N = 12) and trans men (N = 20) as well as cisgender women (N = 24) and cisgender men (N = 14) rated visual stimuli showing male-female, female-female or male-male intercourse for sexual arousal before and after four months of gender-affirming hormone therapy. A Bayesian framework allowed us to incorporate previous behavioral findings. The hypothesized changes could indeed be observed in the behavioral responses with the strongest results for trans men and female-female scenes. Activation of the ventral striatum supported our hypothesis only for female-female scenes in trans women. The respective application or depletion of androgens in trans men and trans women might partly explain this observation. The prominent role of female-female stimuli might be based on the differential responses they elicit in cis women and men or, in theory, the controversial concept of autogynephilia. We show that correlates of sexual arousal in transgender individuals might change in the direction of the experienced gender. Future investigations should elucidate the mechanistic role of sex hormones and the cause of the differential neural and behavioral findings.The study was registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT02715232), March 22, 2016.

Amphetamine use disorder is associated with striatum hypoactivation during anticipation of loss and reward.

BACKGROUND: Dysregulated ventral striatum function has been proposed as one important process occurring in individuals with substance use disorder. This study investigates the role of altered reward and loss anticipation, which is an important component of impaired decision-making, impulsivity, and vulnerability to relapse in individuals with amphetamine use disorder (AMP). AIMS: To determine whether AMP is associated with blunted striatum, prefrontal cortex, and insula signals during win and loss anticipation. METHODS: Participants with and without AMP (AMP+ n = 46, AMP- n = 90) from the Tulsa 1000 study completed a monetary incentive delay (MID) task during functional magnetic resonance imaging. RESULTS: Group main effects indicated that: (1) AMP+ exhibited lower bilateral caudate/putamen and left nucleus accumbens signal than AMP- across anticipation of wins and losses; and (2) AMP+ showed slower reaction times than AMP- during loss anticipation. Group*condition interactions demonstrated that AMP+ exhibited greater right amygdala signal than AMP- while anticipating large wins, a pattern that reversed when anticipating small losses. Left caudate/putamen attenuations in AMP+ during small loss anticipation were also evident. Groups did not differ in prefrontal or insula signals. CONCLUSIONS: AMP+ individuals have altered neural processing and response patterns during reward and loss anticipation, potentially reflecting impairments in dopamine function, which may influence their decision-making and reactions to different win/loss scenarios. These findings help to explain why AMP+ have difficulty with decision-making and exhibit a heightened focus on immediate rewards or punishments.

Dopamine release in human associative striatum during reversal learning.

The dopaminergic system is firmly implicated in reversal learning but human measurements of dopamine release as a correlate of reversal learning success are lacking. Dopamine release and hemodynamic brain activity in response to unexpected changes in action-outcome probabilities are here explored using simultaneous dynamic [11C]Raclopride PET-fMRI and computational modelling of behavior. When participants encounter reversed reward probabilities during a card guessing game, dopamine release is observed in associative striatum. Individual differences in absolute reward prediction error and sensitivity to errors are associated with peak dopamine receptor occupancy. The fMRI response to perseverance errors at the onset of a reversal spatially overlap with the site of dopamine release. Trial-by-trial fMRI correlates of absolute prediction errors show a response in striatum and association cortices, closely overlapping with the location of dopamine release, and separable from a valence signal in ventral striatum. The results converge to implicate striatal dopamine release in associative striatum as a central component of reversal learning, possibly signifying the need for increased cognitive control when new stimuli-responses should be learned.

Resting-State Functional Connectivity of the Dorsal and Ventral Striatum, Impulsivity, and Severity of Use in Recently Abstinent Cocaine-Dependent Individuals.

BACKGROUND: Previous studies have focused on both ventral striatum (VS) and dorsal striatum (DS) in characterizing dopaminergic deficits in addiction. Animal studies suggest VS and DS dysfunction each in association with impulsive and compulsive cocaine use during early and later stages of addiction. However, few human studies have aimed to distinguish the roles of VS and DS dysfunction in cocaine misuse. METHODS: We examined VS and DS resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) of 122 recently abstinent cocaine-dependent individuals (CDs) and 122 healthy controls (HCs) in 2 separate cohorts. We followed published routines in imaging data analyses and evaluated the results at a corrected threshold with age, sex, years of drinking, and smoking accounted for. RESULTS: CDs relative to HCs showed higher VS rsFC with the left inferior frontal cortex (IFC), lower VS rsFC with the hippocampus, and higher DS rsFC with the left orbitofrontal cortex. Region-of-interest analyses confirmed the findings in the 2 cohorts examined separately. In CDs, VS-left IFC and VS-hippocampus connectivity was positively and negatively correlated with average monthly cocaine use in the prior year, respectively. In the second cohort where participants were assessed with the Barratt Impulsivity Scale (BIS-11), VS-left IFC and VS-hippocampus connectivity was also positively and negatively correlated with BIS-11 scores in CDs. In contrast, DS-orbitofrontal cortex connectivity did not relate significantly to cocaine use metrics or BIS-11 scores. CONCLUSION: These findings associate VS rsFC with impulsivity and the severity of recent cocaine use. How DS connectivity partakes in cocaine misuse remains to be investigated.

Neural bases of reward anticipation in healthy individuals with low, mid, and high levels of schizotypy.

A growing body of research has placed the ventral striatum at the center of a network of cerebral regions involved in anticipating rewards in healthy controls. However, little is known about the functional connectivity of the ventral striatum associated with reward anticipation in healthy controls. In addition, few studies have investigated reward anticipation in healthy humans with different levels of schizotypy. Here, we investigated reward anticipation in eighty-four healthy individuals (44 females) recruited based on their schizotypy scores. Participants performed a variant of the Monetary Incentive Delay Task while undergoing event-related fMRI.Participants showed the expected decrease in response times for highly rewarded trials compared to non-rewarded trials. Whole-brain activation analyses replicated previous results, including activity in the ventral and dorsal striatum. Whole-brain psycho-physiological interaction analyses of the left and right ventral striatum revealed increased connectivity during reward anticipation with widespread regions in frontal, parietal and occipital cortex as well as the cerebellum and midbrain. Finally, we found no association between schizotypal personality severity and neural activity and cortico-striatal functional connectivity. In line with the motivational, attentional, and motor functions of rewards, our data reveal multifaceted cortico-striatal networks taking part in reward anticipation in healthy individuals. The ventral striatum is connected to regions of the salience, attentional, motor and visual networks during reward anticipation and thereby in a position to orchestrate optimal goal-directed behavior.

Milkshake Acutely Stimulates Dopamine Release in Ventral and Dorsal Striatum in Healthy-Weight Individuals and Patients with Severe Obesity Undergoing Bariatric Surgery: A Pilot Study.

The overconsumption of palatable energy-dense foods drives obesity, but few human studies have investigated dopamine (DA) release in response to the consumption of a palatable meal, a putative mediator of excess intake in obesity. We imaged [11C]raclopride in the brain with positron emission tomography (PET) to assess striatal dopamine (DA) receptor binding pre- and post-consumption of a highly palatable milkshake (250 mL, 420 kcal) in 11 females, 6 of whom had severe obesity, and 5 of whom had healthy-weight. Those with severe obesity underwent assessments pre- and 3 months post-vertical sleeve gastrectomy (VSG). Our results demonstrated decreased post- vs. pre-meal DA receptor binding in the ventral striatum (p = 0.032), posterior putamen (p = 0.012), and anterior caudate (p = 0.018), consistent with meal-stimulated DA release. Analysis of each group separately suggested that results in the caudate and putamen were disproportionately driven by meal-associated changes in the healthy-weight group. Baseline (pre-meal) DA receptor binding was lower in severe obesity than in the healthy-weight group. Baseline DA receptor binding and DA release did not change from pre- to post-surgery. The results of this small pilot study suggest that milkshake acutely stimulates DA release in the ventral and dorsal striatum. This phenomenon likely contributes to the overconsumption of highly palatable foods in the modern environment.

Sex differences in externalizing and internalizing traits and ventral striatal responses to monetary loss.

Ventral striatum (VS) processes rewarding and punishing stimuli. Women and men vary in externalizing and internalizing traits, which may influence neural responses to reward and punishment. To investigate sex differences in how individual traits influence VS responses to reward and punishment, we curated the data of the Human Connectome Project and identified 981 (473 men) subjects evaluated by the Achenbach Adult Self-Report Syndrome Scales. We processed the imaging data with published routines and extracted VS response (ß) to win and to loss vs. baseline in a gambling task for correlation with externalizing and internalizing symptom severity. Men vs. women showed more severe externalizing symptoms and higher VS response to monetary losses (VS-loss ß) but not to wins. Men but not women showed a significant, positive correlation between VS-loss ß and externalizing traits, and the sex difference was confirmed by a slope test. The correlations of VS-loss vs. externalizing and of VS-win vs. externalizing and those of VS-loss vs. externalizing and of VS-loss vs. internalizing traits both differed significantly in slope, confirming its specificity, in men. Further, the sex-specific relationship between VS-loss ß and externalizing trait did not extend to activities during exposure to negative emotion in the face matching task. To conclude, VS responses to loss but not to win and their correlation with externalizing rather than internalizing symptom severity showed sex differences in young adults. The findings highlight the relationship of externalizing traits and VS response to monetary loss and may have implications for psychological models of externalizing behaviors in men.

Developmental Changes in Habenular and Striatal Social Reinforcement Responsivity Across Adolescence Linked With Substance Use.

BACKGROUND: Habenula (HB) function is implicated in substance use disorders and is involved in inhibiting dopamine release in the ventral striatum (VS). While blunted VS reward responsivity is implicated in risk for later substance use, links between HB reinforcement processing and progression of use have not, to our knowledge, been examined among adolescents. In the present study, we longitudinally assessed HB and VS responsivity to social rewards and punishments across adolescence and examined associations with substance use. METHODS: Within a longitudinal design, 170 adolescents (53.5% female) completed 1 to 3 functional magnetic resonance imaging scans across 6th to 9th grade and reported yearly substance use across 6th to 11th grade. We examined VS and HB responsivity to social reinforcement during a social incentive delay task in which adolescents received social rewards (smiling faces) and punishments (scowling faces). RESULTS: We observed increased VS responsivity to social rewards (vs. reward omissions) and increased VS, but decreased HB, responsivity to social punishment avoidance versus receipt. However, contrary to hypotheses, the HB displayed increased responsivity to social rewards (vs. reward omissions). Further, adolescents reporting regular substance use displayed longitudinally declining HB responsivity to social rewards (vs. reward omissions), whereas adolescents reporting no substance use displayed longitudinally increasing HB responsivity. In contrast, whereas VS responsivity to punishment avoidance versus receipt increased longitudinally among regular substance users, it stayed relatively stable among nonusers. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that differential HB and VS social reinforcement processing trajectories across adolescence are associated with substance use.

Revisiting reward impairments in schizophrenia spectrum disorders: a systematic review and meta-analysis for neuroimaging findings.

BACKGROUND: Abnormal reward functioning is central to anhedonia and amotivation symptoms of schizophrenia (SCZ). Reward processing encompasses a series of psychological components. This systematic review and meta-analysis examined the brain dysfunction related to reward processing of individuals with SCZ spectrum disorders and risks, covering multiple reward components. METHODS: After a systematic literature search, 37 neuroimaging studies were identified and divided into four groups based on their target psychology components (i.e. reward anticipation, reward consumption, reward learning, effort computation). Whole-brain Seed-based d Mapping (SDM) meta-analyses were conducted for all included studies and each component. RESULTS: The meta-analysis for all reward-related studies revealed reduced functional activation across the SCZ spectrum in the striatum, orbital frontal cortex, cingulate cortex, and cerebellar areas. Meanwhile, distinct abnormal patterns were found for reward anticipation (decreased activation of the cingulate cortex and striatum), reward consumption (decreased activation of cerebellum IV/V areas, insula and inferior frontal gyri), and reward learning processing (decreased activation of the striatum, thalamus, cerebellar Crus I, cingulate cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, and parietal and occipital areas). Lastly, our qualitative review suggested that decreased activation of the ventral striatum and anterior cingulate cortex was also involved in effort computation. CONCLUSIONS: These results provide deep insights on the component-based neuro-psychopathological mechanisms for anhedonia and amotivation symptoms of the SCZ spectrum.

Different characteristics of striatal resting-state functional conectivity in treatment-resistant and non-treatment-resistant depression.

Major depressive disorder is associated with a reward deficit manifested by abnormal striatal function. However, differences between treatment-resistant depression (TRD) and non TRD (nTRD) in striatal whole-brain functional connectivity (FC) have not been elucidated. Thirty-eight patients with TRD, 42 patients with nTRD, and 39 healthy controls (HCs) were recruited for this study. A seed-based FC approach was used to analyze abnormalities in six predefined striatal subregion circuits in the three groups of subjects, and further explore the correlation between abnormal FC and clinical symptoms. Results revealed that compared with the nTRD group, the TRD group showed increased FC of the inferior ventral striatum with the bilateral orbital area of the middle frontal gyrus, right cerebellum posterior lobe, left parahippocampal gyrus, left middle occipital gyrus and left lingual gyrus. Compared with the HC group, the TRD group showed a wider range of altered striatal function than the nTRD group. In the TRD group, the HAMD-17 scores were positively correlated with the FC between the right VRP and the left caudate. This study provides new insights into understanding the specificity of TRD striatal circuits.

Motivated for near impossibility: How task type and reward modulate task enjoyment and the striatal activation for extremely difficult task.

Economic and decision-making theories suppose that people would disengage from a task with near zero success probability, because this implicates little normative utility values. However, humans often are motivated for an extremely challenging task, even without any extrinsic incentives. The current study aimed to address the nature of this challenge-based motivation and its neural correlates. We found that, when participants played a skill-based task without extrinsic incentives, their task enjoyment increased as the chance of success decreased, even if the task was almost impossible to achieve. However, such challenge-based motivation was not observed when participants were rewarded for the task or the reward was determined in a probabilistic manner. The activation in the ventral striatum/pallidum tracked the pattern of task enjoyment. These results suggest that people are intrinsically motivated to challenge a nearly impossible task but only when the task requires certain skills and extrinsic rewards are unavailable.

More time awake after sleep onset is linked to reduced ventral striatum response to rewards in youth with anxiety.

BACKGROUND: Poor sleep and anxiety disorders are highly comorbid in youth, and each predicts altered ventral striatum (VS) response to rewards, which may impact mental health risk. Contrasting evidence suggests previously reported negative associations between sleep health and VS response may be stronger or weaker in youth with anxiety, indicating sensitivity to win/loss information or blunted reward processing, respectively. We cross-sectionally examined the role of sleep in VS response to rewards among youth with anxiety versus a no-psychiatric-diagnosis comparison (ND) group. We expected a group*sleep interaction on VS response to rewards but did not hypothesize directionality. METHODS: As part of the pretreatment battery for a randomized clinical trial, 74 youth with anxiety and 31 ND youth (ages 9-14 years; n = 55 female) completed a monetary reward task during fMRI. During the same pretreatment window, actigraphy and diary-estimated sleep were collected over 5 days, and participants and their parents each reported participants' total sleep problems. We examined group*sleep interactions on VS response to monetary rewards versus losses via three mixed linear models corresponding to actigraphy, diary, and questionnaires, respectively. RESULTS: Each model indicated group*sleep interactions on VS response to rewards. Actigraphy and diary-estimated time awake after sleep onset predicted reduced VS response in youth with anxiety but not ND youth. Parent-reported sleep problems similarly interacted with group, but simple slopes were nonsignificant. CONCLUSIONS: Wake after sleep onset was associated with blunted reward response in youth with anxiety. These data suggest a potential pathway through which sleep could contribute to perturbed reward function and reward-related psychopathology (e.g., depression) in youth with anxiety.

Is loss avoidance differentially rewarding in adolescents versus adults? Differences in ventral striatum and anterior insula activation during the anticipation of potential monetary losses.

Avoiding loss is a crucial, adaptive guide to human behavior. While previous developmental research has primarily focused on gaining rewards, less attention has been paid to loss processing and its avoidance. In daily life, it is often unknown how likely an action will result in a loss, making the role of uncertainty in loss processing particularly important. By using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we investigated the influence of varying outcome probabilities (12%, 34%, and 67%) on brain regions implicated in loss processing (ventral striatum (VS), anterior insula (AI)) by comparing 28 adolescents (10-18 years) and 24 adults (22-32 years) during the anticipation of potential monetary loss.Overall, results revealed slower RTs in adolescents compared to adults with both groups being faster in the experimental (monetary condition) vs. control trials (verbal condition). Fastest RTs were observed for the 67% outcome probability in both age groups. An age group × outcome probability interaction effect revealed the greatest differences between the groups for the 12% vs. the 67% outcome probability. Neurally, both age groups demonstrated a higher percent signal change in the VS and AI during the anticipation of potential monetary loss versus the verbal condition. However, adults demonstrated an even greater activation of VS and AI than adolescents during the anticipation of potential monetary loss, but not during the verbal condition. This may indicate that adolescents differ from adults regarding their experience of avoiding losing monetary rewards.

The neural correlates underlying the regulation of anticipation on regret.

Regret is a common negative emotion in daily life, and long-term immersion in regret affects mental health. Therefore, to regulate and reduce regret is of wide concern. The current fMRI study aimed to investigate whether outcome anticipation before decision-making could reduce regret and its neural correlates. In the task, participants were asked to anticipate the possible poor outcomes of subsequent decisions, such as missing rewards and meeting punishment, and then made sequential risk-taking decisions. Behavioral results showed that outcome anticipation before decision-making could decrease the intensity of regret, that is, participants felt less regret when they anticipated the outcome before decision-making (anticipation condition, Ant), compared to making sequential risk-taking decisions without any anticipation of the outcome in advance (non-anticipation condition, NAnt). Consistently, at the neural level, stronger activities of ventral striatum (VS) and dorsal medial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC), and greater VS-dmPFC functional connectivity were observed in Ant relative to NAnt. Moreover, the activity of dmPFC was negatively correlated with the intensity of regret in Ant. The current study highlighted that outcome anticipation before decision-making could regulate regret effectively, and dmPFC played a vital role in this process.

Reward modality modulates striatal responses to reward anticipation in ADHD: Effects of affiliative and food stimuli.

Altered reward sensitivity has been proposed to underlie symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have reported hypoactivation to reward-predicting cues in the ventral striatum among individuals with ADHD, using experimental designs with and without behavioral response requirements. These studies have typically used monetary incentives as rewards; however, it is unclear if these findings extend to other reward types. The current study examined striatal responses to anticipation and delivery of both affiliative and food reward images using a classical conditioning paradigm. Data from 20 typically developing young adults, and 20 individuals diagnosed with ADHD were included in a region-of-interest analysis for a priori striatal regions. Consistent with findings from studies using monetary rewards, individuals with ADHD showed decreased activation to cues predicting affiliative rewards in the bilateral ventral and dorsal striatum and increased activation to the delivery of affiliative rewards in the ventral striatum. No group differences were found in striatal responses to food reward cues or images. These results suggest hyposensitivity to reward-predicting cues in ADHD extends to affiliative rewards, with important implications for understanding and managing the learning and social functioning of those with ADHD.

Decreased reward circuit connectivity during reward anticipation in major depression.

An important symptom of major depressive disorder (MDD) is the inability to experience pleasure, possibly due to a dysfunction of the reward system. Despite promising insights regarding impaired reward-related processing in MDD, circuit-level abnormalities remain largely unexplored. Furthermore, whereas studies contrasting experimental conditions from incentive tasks have revealed important information about reward processing, temporal difference modeling of reward-related prediction error (PE) signals might give a more accurate representation of the reward system. We used a monetary incentive delay task during functional MRI scanning to explore PE-related striatal and ventral tegmental area (VTA) activation in response to anticipation and delivery of monetary rewards in 24 individuals with MDD versus 24 healthy controls (HCs). Furthermore, we investigated group differences in temporal difference related connectivity with a generalized psychophysiological interaction (gPPI) analysis with the VTA, ventral striatum (VS) and dorsal striatum (DS) as seeds during reward versus neutral, both in anticipation and delivery. Relative to HCs, MDD patients displayed a trend-level (p = 0.052) decrease in temporal difference-related activation in the VS during reward anticipation and delivery combined. Moreover, gPPI analyses revealed that during reward anticipation, MDD patients exhibited decreased functional connectivity between the VS and anterior cingulate cortex / medial prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate gyrus, angular/middle orbital gyrus, left insula, superior/middle frontal gyrus (SFG/MFG) and precuneus/superior occipital gyrus/cerebellum compared to HC. Moreover, MDD patients showed decreased functional connectivity between the VTA and left insula compared to HC during reward anticipation. Exploratory analysis separating medication free patients from patients using antidepressant revealed that these decreased functional connectivity patterns were mainly apparent in the MDD group that used antidepressants. These results suggest that MDD is characterized by alterations in reward circuit connectivity rather than isolated activation impairments. These findings represent an important extension of the existing literature since improved understanding of neural pathways underlying depression-related reward dysfunctions, may help currently unmet diagnostic and therapeutic efforts.

Self-control impacts symptoms defining Internet gaming disorder through dorsal anterior cingulate-ventral striatal pathway.

Self-control is important for long-term success and could be a protective factor against maladaptive behaviours such as excessive gaming activity or Internet gaming disorder (IGD). However, the neurobiological basis of self-control and its relationship to IGD remain elusive. Using resting-state fMRI data from 89 participants aged from 18 to 26, we found that self-control and the number of IGD symptoms (IGD-S) were positively and negatively correlated with functional connectivity between right ventral striatum (rVS) and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC), respectively. A mediation analysis indicated that self-control influenced IGD-S partially through the rVS-dACC connectivity. In addition, step-wise regression analyses revealed that the rVS connectivity in a reward-anticipation limbic pathway contributed to IGD-S but not self-control, independent of the dACC pathway. These results suggest that the cingulate-ventral striatal functional connectivity may serve as an important neurobiological underpinning of self-control to regulate maladaptive behaviours such as these manifesting IGD through striatal circuitry balance.