The current proposal aims to study neural mechanisms of social learning in healthy adults as a precursor to understanding the impact of mental illnesses on social functioning. Changes in social behavior are often the first symptoms of a striking array of neuropsychiatric disorders. However, whereas disruptions in memory, motor, or emotional functioning are readily recognized as symptoms of more serious underlying conditions, decision-making deficits are often overlooked, particularly in the social domain. Furthermore, there exist few behavioral measures or biomarkers to quantify such deficits, due in part to our limited knowledge of the underlying neural mechanisms and their relation to mental disorders. We do so via a tight integration of computational modeling of goal-directed social behavior, and testing the predictions generated using complementary experimental techniques with both fMRI and focal lesion patients. In particular, we focus on the role of dopamine and interactions between the basal ganglia and frontal cortices, which are together critical for goal-directed behavior and known to be affected in a variety of disorders. First, we will use the model, calibrated on observed behavior, to derive trial-by-trial regressors for use in functional neuroimaging experiments. Second, the estimated parameters of the model themselves can be used to compare across health and diseased groups, or find subtypes of the diseased groups. Finally, the neural correlates and the behavioral estimates can be combined in order to find novel brain-behavior markers of diseases. In this way, we seek to provide a unifying account of goal-directed behavior in both social and non- social settings, which has the potential to lead to development of new ways of classifying mental disorders based on dimensions of observable behavior and neurobiological measures.

Public Health Relevance

The current proposal aims to study neural mechanisms of social learning in healthy adults as a precursor to understanding the impact of mental illnesses on social functioning. Changes in social behavior are often the first symptoms of a striking array of neuropsychiatric disorders. We seek to provide a unifying account of goal- directed behavior in both social and non-social settings using a neuroeconomic framework, which has the potential to lead to development of new ways of classifying mental disorders based on dimensions of observable behavior and neurobiological measures.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
4R01MH098023-04
Application #
9052836
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1)
Program Officer
Simmons, Janine M
Project Start
2013-04-01
Project End
2018-01-31
Budget Start
2016-02-01
Budget End
2017-01-31
Support Year
4
Fiscal Year
2016
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
University of California Berkeley
Department
Type
Sch of Business/Public Admin
DUNS #
124726725
City
Berkeley
State
CA
Country
United States
Zip Code
94704
Jenkins, Adrianna C; Karashchuk, Pierre; Zhu, Lusha et al. (2018) Predicting human behavior toward members of different social groups. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 115:9696-9701
Seaman, Kendra L; Brooks, Nickolas; Karrer, Teresa M et al. (2018) Subjective value representations during effort, probability and time discounting across adulthood. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 13:449-459
Lui, Ming; Hsu, Ming (2018) Viewing sexual images is associated with reduced physiological arousal response to gambling loss. PLoS One 13:e0195748
Lieder, Falk; Griffiths, Thomas L; Hsu, Ming (2018) Overrepresentation of extreme events in decision making reflects rational use of cognitive resources. Psychol Rev 125:1-32
Kobayashi, Kenji; Hsu, Ming (2017) Neural Mechanisms of Updating under Reducible and Irreducible Uncertainty. J Neurosci 37:6972-6982
Jenkins, Adrianna C; Hsu, Ming (2017) Dissociable Contributions of Imagination and Willpower to the Malleability of Human Patience. Psychol Sci 28:894-906
Kitayama, Shinobu; King, Anthony; Hsu, Ming et al. (2016) Dopamine-System Genes and Cultural Acquisition: The Norm Sensitivity Hypothesis. Curr Opin Psychol 8:167-174
Chiong, Winston; Wood, Kristie A; Beagle, Alexander J et al. (2016) Neuroeconomic dissociation of semantic dementia and behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia. Brain 139:578-87
Jenkins, Adrianna; Zhu, Lusha; Hsu, Ming (2016) Cognitive neuroscience of honesty and deception: A signaling framework. Curr Opin Behav Sci 11:130-137
Zhong, Songfa; Chark, Robin; Hsu, Ming et al. (2016) Computational substrates of social norm enforcement by unaffected third parties. Neuroimage 129:95-104

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