Evolutionary game and stability analysis of elderly care service quality supervision from the perspective of government governance.

Objective: The performance of government functions is an important guarantee for the standardized operation of the elderly service market. The objective of this study is to explore the optimal path for the government to govern the elderly care service market. Methods: The tripartite evolutionary game model is proposed in the paper, which composed of local governments, private elderly care institutions and the public. Furthermore, three mechanisms, i.e. dynamic penalty and static subsidy, static penalty and dynamic subsidy, dynamic penalty and dynamic subsidy, are designed. Under these different mechanisms, the stability of each subject's strategy choice is analyzed by using system dynamics simulation. Results: The introduction of dynamic mechanisms can compensate for the inability of static mechanisms to bring the system to a steady state. The dynamic penalty and dynamic subsidy mechanism allows the system to evolve to the desired point of stability. The self-discipline behavior of private elderly care institutions is positively correlated with penalties and reputation gains-losses, negatively correlated with subsidies, and not correlated with supervision rewards. Excessive subsidies will promote the collusion of private elderly institutions. Conclusion: Only when the local government adopts the dynamic penalty and dynamic subsidy mechanism will private elderly care institutions choose to operate in a fully self-disciplined manner. Reasonable adjustments of penalties, reputation gains-losses and subsidies can not only further optimize the dynamic penalty and dynamic subsidy mechanism, but also help to achieve diversified regulatory objectives of the government. This study would provide a reference for local governments seeking to develop effective regulatory policies for the elderly service market.

A reward effect on memory retention, consolidation, and generalization?

Reward improves memory through both encoding and consolidation processes. In this preregistered study, we tested whether reward effects on memory generalize from high-rewarded items to low-rewarded but episodically related items. Fifty-nine human volunteers incidentally encoded associations between unique objects and repeated scenes. Some scenes typically yielded high reward, whereas others typically yielded low reward. Memory was tested immediately after encoding (n = 29) or the next day (n = 30). Overall, reward had only a limited influence on memory. It did not enhance consolidation and its effect did not generalize to episodically related stimuli. We thus contribute to understanding the boundary conditions of reward effects on memory.

Beta traveling waves in monkey frontal and parietal areas encode recent reward history.

Brain function depends on neural communication, but the mechanisms of this communication are not well understood. Recent studies suggest that one form of neural communication is through traveling waves (TWs)-patterns of neural oscillations that propagate within and between brain areas. We show that TWs are robust in microarray recordings in frontal and parietal cortex and encode recent reward history. Two adult male monkeys made saccades to obtain probabilistic rewards and were sensitive to the (statistically irrelevant) reward on the previous trial. TWs in frontal and parietal areas were stronger in trials that followed a prior reward versus a lack of reward and, in the frontal lobe, correlated with the monkeys' behavioral sensitivity to the prior reward. The findings suggest that neural communication mediated by TWs within the frontal and parietal lobes contribute to maintaining information about recent reward history and mediating the impact of this history on the monkeys' expectations.

Representation of rewards differing in their hedonic valence in the caudate nucleus correlates with the performance in a problem-solving task in dogs (Canis familiaris).

We have investigated dogs' (Canis familiaris) abilities in associating different sounds with appetitive stimuli of different incentive values. The association's establishment was first tested on family dogs (n = 20) in a problem-solving behavioural paradigm (experiment 1), then in a problem-solving behavioural paradigm as well as an fMRI study on specially trained family dogs (n = 20) (experiment 2). The aim was to show behavioural and parallel neural effects of the association formed between the two sounds and two different associated appetitive stimuli. The latency of solving the problem was considered an indicator of the motivational state. In our first experiment, where only behaviour was studied, we found that dogs were quicker in solving a problem upon hearing the sound associated with food higher in reward value, suggesting that they have successfully associated the sounds with the corresponding food value. In our second experiment, this behaviour difference was not significant. In the fMRI study, the cerebral response to the two sounds was compared both before and after the associative training. Two bilateral regions of interest were explored: the caudate nucleus and the amygdala. After the associative training, the response in the caudate nucleus was higher to the sound related to a higher reward value food than to the sound related to a lower reward value food, which difference was not present before the associative training. We found an increase in the amygdala response to both sounds after the training. In a whole-brain representational similarity analysis, we found that cerebral patterns in the caudate nucleus to the two sounds were different only after the training. Moreover, we found a positive correlation between the dissimilarity index in the caudate nucleus for activation responses to the two sounds and the difference in latencies (i.e. high reward value associated sound condition latency-low reward value associated sound condition latency) to solve the behavioural task: the bigger the difference between the conditions in latency to solve the task, the greater the difference in the neural representation of the two sounds was. In summary, family dogs' brain activation patterns reflected their expectations based on what they learned about the relationship between two sounds and their associated appetitive stimuli.

Cerebellar climbing fibers multiplex movement and reward signals during a voluntary movement task in mice.

Cerebellar climbing fibers convey sensorimotor information and their errors, which are used for motor control and learning. Furthermore, they represent reward-related information. Despite such functional diversity of climbing fiber signals, it is still unclear whether each climbing fiber conveys the information of single or multiple modalities and how the climbing fibers conveying different information are distributed over the cerebellar cortex. Here we perform two-photon calcium imaging from cerebellar Purkinje cells in mice engaged in a voluntary forelimb lever-pull task and demonstrate that climbing fiber responses in 68% of Purkinje cells can be explained by the combination of multiple behavioral variables such as lever movement, licking, and reward delivery. Neighboring Purkinje cells exhibit similar climbing fiber response properties, form functional clusters, and share noise fluctuations of responses. Taken together, individual climbing fibers convey behavioral information on multiplex variables and are spatially organized into the functional modules of the cerebellar cortex.

Inhibitory neurons: VIP neurons expect rewards.

Inhibitory neurons which express vasoactive intestinal polypeptide, VIPs, are a small subset of the mammalian cortex but in importance live up to their acronym. New research shows that these critical control knobs of cortical activity are specifically activated by actions taken when rewards are anticipated rather than consummated.

Transdiagnostic considerations of the relationship between reward sensitivity and psychopathological symptoms - a cross-lagged panel analysis.

BACKGROUND: Reward sensitivity constitutes a potential key mechanism regarding the etiology and maintenance of mental disorders, especially depression. However, due to a lack of longitudinal studies, the temporal dynamics are not clear yet. Although some evidence indicates that reward processing could be a transdiagnostic mechanism of disorders, these observations could be also a product of comorbidity with depression. This study aimed at investigating the temporal dynamics of reward sensitivity and the course of psychopathological symptoms in a longitudinal investigation, while taking a possible mediating role of depression into account. METHODS: We conducted a three-wave longitudinal online survey with a 4-week interval. A total of N = 453 participants filled out all three questionnaires. Reward sensitivity was assessed with the Positive Valence System Scale-21 (PVSS-21), depression with the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9), eating disorder symptoms with the Eating Disorder Examination-Questionnaire-8 (EDE-Q-8), social anxiety with the Mini-social phobia inventory (Mini-SPIN) and alcohol consumption with the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test-Consumption (AUDIT-C). Cross-lagged panels and mediation analyses were calculated using path analyses. RESULTS: Depressive and eating disorder symptoms predicted reward insensitivity at later points in time. Effects were larger from T2 to T3. A bidirectional relationship concerning social anxiety was found. Higher alcohol consumption predicted higher reward sensitivity. Depression at T2 fully mediated the association between psychopathological symptoms at T1 and reward sensitivity at T3 for social anxiety and eating disorder symptoms. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings imply that reduced reward sensitivity seems to be a consequence rather than an antecedent of psychopathological symptoms. Comorbid depression plays a crucial role in other mental disorders regarding observed hyposensitivity towards rewards. Therefore, our results do not support a transdiagnostic notion of reward sensitivity, but they indicate a potential role of reward sensitivity for symptom persistence. TRIAL REGISTRATION: The study was preregistered at the Open Science Framework (OSF) ( https://archive.org/details/osf-registrations-6n3s8-v1 ; registration DOI https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/6N3S8 ).

The role of impulse and interference control in aversive personality: A comprehensive assessment.

Ethically and socially aversive behaviors have been attributed to several personality traits, including characteristics collectively referred to under the umbrella term of impulsivity. It is an open question, however, whether such characteristics are an integral part of ethically and socially aversive personality. Relying on three large samples (total N = 9854) and implementing longitudinal assessments, the present study provides a comprehensive investigation of the role of impulse and interference control in aversive personality. Based on contemporary conceptualizations of the impulsivity domain, a total of 17 dimensions spanning both self-reports and behavioral tasks are assessed. To represent aversive personality, we consider the D Factor of Personality (D), i.e., the basic disposition shared by all aversive traits. Results indicate that D co-occurs with a deficit in inhibiting the incorrect action when multiple actions are available, a preference for immediate rewards while failing to consider the consequences of one's actions, and maladaptive behavior directed towards regulating strong affect. However, most associations between D and dimensions of impulsivity were small or non-significant, thereby disconfirming the notion that characteristics related to a lack of impulse control are an integral feature of aversive personality in general.

Assessing reward preference using operant behavior in male and female mice.

Many different solid food pellets are available as reinforcers for rodents in operant behavior tests. Different reward formulations have not been compared, so it is unclear whether mice show strong preferences for different rewards and whether such preferences are consistent within or across sex and background strain. Here we show that mice have strong preferences for two balanced diet food rewards over sucrose pellets, and preference for one balanced diet pellet formulation over another, in a simultaneous choice test using a low effort fixed ratio operant test. All mice, of both sexes and both CD1 and C57 background strains, showed the same strong preferences among these three types of reinforcers. In contrast, flavorings added to the reward pellets had relatively small and more variable effects on preference. The preference for balanced diet pellets over sucrose pellets was seen also in the total numbers of rewards consumed in low effort tests with food pellets or only sucrose pellets available. However, progressive ratio testing showed that mice worked harder for sucrose pellets than for the preferred balanced diet pellets. These findings indicate that reinforcers with similar and very different preference profiles are readily available and that testing with different rewards can produce different, and sometimes unexpected, results.

A new scale assessing the stressors and rewards of children's hospice work.

BACKGROUND: There is a workforce shortage in the children's hospice sector, but there has been little research on the specific challenges of working in this setting and on how these challenges might be alleviated. To identify appropriate interventions to improve staff wellbeing, the drivers of wellbeing in children's hospices need to be known and measured. This paper reports on the development of two measures, one for work-related rewards and one for work-related stressors, for use in children's hospice care teams. METHODS: A mixed-methods, four-stage study; the first three phases focused on the development of the scales, and the last stage focused on the validation of the scales. Participants of all stages were children's hospice care team staff members in the UK. Stage 1: survey assessing the relevance and comprehensiveness of the original scale items (N = 60); Stages 2 (focus groups; N = 16) and 3 (cognitive interviews; N = 14) to assess content validity; Stage 4: UK-wide survey (N = 414) to validate the final version of the new, children's hospice-specific scales using Rasch Analysis (RA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). RESULTS: Due to poor fitting indices shown in the results from the RA, five items (out of 36) were removed from the new rewards scale used in the UK-wide survey and 20 (out of 62) were removed from the new stressors scale. CFA also supported the removal of the items and showed a one-factor structure for the rewards scale and a three-factor structure for the stressors scale were adequate-the sub-scales for the stressors scale related to caring for an ill or dying child ("Child" sub-scale), working with parents and families ("Parent" sub-scale), and stressors related to organisational factors, such as team conflict and workload ("Organisation" sub-scale). CONCLUSIONS: Both of the new scales showed good psychometric properties and can be useful in clinical settings and research to assess the perceived intensity of the work-related rewards and stressors for children's hospice staff.

Not all discounts are created equal: Regional activity and brain networks in temporal and effort discounting.

Reward outcomes associated with costs like time delay and effort investment are generally discounted in decision-making. Standard economic models predict rewards associated with different types of costs are devalued in a similar manner. However, our review of rodent lesion studies indicated partial dissociations between brain regions supporting temporal- and effort-based decision-making. Another debate is whether options involving low and high costs are processed in different brain substrates (dual-system) or in the same regions (single-system). This research addressed these issues using coordinate-based, connectivity-based, and activation network-based meta-analyses to identify overlapping and separable neural systems supporting temporal (39 studies) and effort (20 studies) discounting. Coordinate-based activation likelihood estimation and resting-state connectivity analyses showed immediate-small reward and delayed-large reward choices engaged distinct regions with unique connectivity profiles, but their activation network mapping was found to engage the default mode network. For effort discounting, salience and sensorimotor networks supported low-effort choices, while the frontoparietal network supported high-effort choices. There was little overlap between the temporal and effort networks. Our findings underscore the importance of differentiating different types of costs in decision-making and understanding discounting at both regional and network levels.

Action initiation and punishment learning differ from childhood to adolescence while reward learning remains stable.

Theoretical and empirical accounts suggest that adolescence is associated with heightened reward learning and impulsivity. Experimental tasks and computational models that can dissociate reward learning from the tendency to initiate actions impulsively (action initiation bias) are thus critical to characterise the mechanisms that drive developmental differences. However, existing work has rarely quantified both learning ability and action initiation, or it has relied on small samples. Here, using computational modelling of a learning task collected from a large sample (N = 742, 9-18 years, 11 countries), we test differences in reward and punishment learning and action initiation from childhood to adolescence. Computational modelling reveals that whilst punishment learning rates increase with age, reward learning remains stable. In parallel, action initiation biases decrease with age. Results are similar when considering pubertal stage instead of chronological age. We conclude that heightened reward responsivity in adolescence can reflect differences in action initiation rather than enhanced reward learning.

An experimental approach to training mood for resilience.

According to influential theories about mood, exposure to environments characterized by specific patterns of punishments and rewards could shape mood response to future stimuli. This raises the intriguing possibility that mood could be trained by exposure to controlled environments. The aim of the present study is to investigate experimental settings that increase resilience of mood to negative stimuli. For this study, a new task was developed where participants register their mood when rewards are added or subtracted from their score. The study was conducted online, using Amazon MTurk, and a total of N = 1287 participants were recruited for all three sets of experiments. In an exploratory experiment, sixteen different experimental task environments which are characterized by different mood-reward relationships, were tested. We identified six task environments that produce the greatest improvements in mood resilience to negative stimuli, as measured by decreased sensitivity to loss. In a next step, we isolated the two most effective task environments, from the previous set of experiments, and we replicated our results and tested mood's resilience to negative stimuli over time, in a novel sample. We found that the effects of the task environments on mood are detectable and remain significant after multiple task rounds (approximately two minutes) for an environment where good mood yielded maximum reward. These findings are a first step in our effort to better understand the mechanisms behind mood training and its potential clinical utility.

Cumulative lifetime acute stressor exposure interacts with reward responsiveness to predict longitudinal increases in depression severity in adolescence.

BACKGROUND: Life stress and blunted reward processing each have been associated with the onset and maintenance of major depressive disorder. However, much of this work has been cross-sectional, conducted in separate lines of inquiry, and focused on recent life stressor exposure, despite the fact that theories of depression posit that stressors can have cumulative effects over the lifespan. To address these limitations, we investigated whether acute and chronic stressors occurring over the lifespan interacted with blunted reward processing to predict increases in depression over time in healthy youth. METHOD: Participants were 245 adolescent girls aged 8-14 years old (Mage = 12.4, s.d. = 1.8) who were evaluated at baseline and two years later. The reward positivity (RewP), an event-related potential measure of reward responsiveness, was assessed at baseline using the doors task. Cumulative lifetime exposure to acute and chronic stressors was assessed two years later using the Stress and Adversity Inventory for Adolescents (Adolescent STRAIN). Finally, depressive symptoms were assessed at both baseline and follow-up using the Children's Depression Inventory. RESULTS: As hypothesized, greater lifetime acute stressor exposure predicted increases in depressive symptoms over two years, but only for youth exhibiting a blunted RewP. This interaction, however, was not found for chronic stressors. CONCLUSIONS: Lifetime acute stressor exposure may be particularly depressogenic for youth exhibiting a blunted RewP. Conversely, a robust RewP may be protective in the presence of greater acute lifetime stressor exposure.

Exploring the effect of pain on response to reward loss in calves.

Negative emotional states are known to interact, potentially aggravating one another. In this study, we used a well validated paradigm (successive negative contrast, SNC) to determine if pain from a common procedure (disbudding) influences responses to a reward downshift. Holstein calves (n = 30) were trained to approach a 0.5 L milk reward. Latency to approach, number of vocalisations and pressure applied on the bottle were recorded during training. To assess how pain affected responses to reward downshift, calves were randomly assigned to one of three treatments before the downshift. Two groups were disbudded and provided the 'gold standard' of pain mitigation: intraoperative local anesthesia and analgesia. One of these disbudded groups was then provided supplemental analgesic before testing. The third group was sham disbudded. All calves were then subjected to the reward downshift by reducing the milk reward to just 0.1 L. Interactions were detected between test session and daily trials on pressure applied for the Disbudded group (estimate ± SEM: 0.08 ± 0.05), and on vocalisations for the Sham (0.3 ± 0.1) and Disbudding + Analgesia (0.4 ± 0.1) groups. Our results indicate that SNC is a promising paradigm for measuring negative affect in calves and suggests that pain potentially affects the response to a reward downshift.

Host miR-129-5p reverses effects of ginsenoside Rg1 on morphine reward possibly mediated by changes in B. vulgatus and serotonin metabolism in hippocampus.

Morphine addiction is closely associated with dysbiosis of the gut microbiota. miRNAs play a crucial role in regulating intestinal bacterial growth and are involved in the development of disease. Ginsenoside Rg1 exhibits an anti-addiction effect and significantly improves intestinal microbiota disorders. In pseudo-germfree mice, supplementation with Bacteroides vulgatus (B. vulgatus) synergistically enhanced Rg1 to alleviate morphine addiction. However, it is currently unknown the relationship between fecal miRNAs in morphine-exposed mice and their potential modulation of gut microbiome, as well as their role in mediating the resistance of ginsenoside Rg1 to drug addiction. Here, we studied the fecal miRNA abundance in mice treated with morphine to explore the different miRNAs expressed, their association with B. vulgatus and their role in the amelioration of morphine reward by ginsenoside Rg1. Our results indicated ginsenoside Rg1 attenuated the significant increase in miR-129-5p expression observed in the feces of morphine-treated mice. The miR-129-5p, specifically, inhibited the growth of B. vulgatus by modulating the transcript of the site-tag BVU_RS11835 and increased the levels of 5-hydroxytryptophan and indole-3-carboxaldehyde in vitro. Subsequently, we noticed that oral administration of synthetic miR-129-5p increased 5-HT levels in the hippocampus and inhibited the reversal effect of ginsenoside Rg1 both on the relative abundance of B. vulgatus in the feces and CPP effect induced by morphine exposure. In short, Ginsenoside Rg1 might play an indirect role in remodeling the B. vulgatus against morphine reward by suppressing miR-129-5p expression. These results highlight the role of miR-129-5p and B. vulgatus in morphine reward and the anti-morphine addiction of ginsenoside Rg1.

Effects of feedback reliability on event-related potentials in an arrow flanker task.

The processing of feedback is essential for learning, error detection, and correction. However, the underlying mechanisms of the feedback's characteristics, such as its reliability, valence, and expectations in the processing of error information, are not completely clear. The two degrees of feedback reliability, reliable feedback and unreliable feedback, respectively, were established by manipulating the feedback valence. The time course of event-related potentials (ERP) during the arrow flanker tasks was used to investigate the effects of feedback reliability and responses on brain activity. Three ERP components, the error-related negativity (ERN), feedback-related negativity (FRN), and P3, respectively, were measured. The impacts of feedback reliability and responses on ERN, FRN, and P3 had a different profile. Specifically, ERN and P3 are associated with the responses but not the feedback reliability, while FRN is associated with feedback reliability and feedback expectations but not the responses. The ERN, FRN, and P3 reflect distinct cognitive processes in the processing of error information.

Reward and punishment learning deficits among bipolar disorder subtypes.

BACKGROUND: Reward sensitivity is an essential dimension related to mood fluctuations in bipolar disorder (BD), but there is currently a debate around hypersensitivity or hyposensitivity hypotheses to reward in BD during remission, probably related to a heterogeneous population within the BD spectrum and a lack of reward bias evaluation. Here, we examine reward maximization vs. punishment avoidance learning within the BD spectrum during remission. METHODS: Patients with BD-I (n = 45), BD-II (n = 34) and matched (n = 30) healthy controls (HC) were included. They performed an instrumental learning task designed to dissociate reward-based from punishment-based reinforcement learning. Computational modeling was used to identify the mechanisms underlying reinforcement learning performances. RESULTS: Behavioral results showed a significant reward learning deficit across BD subtypes compared to HC, captured at the computational level by a lower sensitivity to rewards compared to punishments in both BD subtypes. Computational modeling also revealed a higher choice randomness in BD-II compared to BD-I that reflected a tendency of BD-I to perform better during punishment avoidance learning than BD-II. LIMITATIONS: Our patients were not naive to antipsychotic treatment and were not euthymic (but in syndromic remission) according to the International Society for Bipolar Disorder definition. CONCLUSIONS: Our results are consistent with the reward hyposensitivity theory in BD. Computational modeling suggests distinct underlying mechanisms that produce similar observable behaviors, making it a useful tool for distinguishing how symptoms interact in BD versus other disorders. In the long run, a better understanding of these processes could contribute to better prevention and management of BD.

Rewarding outcomes enhance attentional capture and delay attentional disengagement.

Attentional capture and disengagement are distinct process involved in attentional orienting. Most current studies have examined either the process of attentional capture or disengagement by manipulating stimuli associated with either positive (gains) or negative outcomes (losses). However, few studies have investigated whether attentional capture and disengagement are modulated by reward and loss outcomes. In the current study, we want to examine whether positive or negative outcomes could modulate distinguishing process of attentional capture and disengagement. Here, we manipulated different colored singleton stimuli associated with reward or loss outcomes; these stimuli were either presented at the center of screen or at the peripheral location. The participants' task was to search the target and identify the orientation of line segment in target as quickly as possible. The results showed that people had difficulty disengaging from a central reward-distractor, in comparison to loss- and neutral-distractor when target was presented at peripheral location. Similarly, peripheral reward-distractor captured more attention than loss- and neutral-distractor when target was presented at the center of screen after central fixation disappeared. Through our discoveries, we can conclude that positive rewards can increase attentional capture and delay attentional disengagement in healthy people.