TY - JOUR
T1 - Parceling human accumbens into putative core and shell dissociates encoding of values for reward and pain
AU - Baliki, Marwan N.
AU - Mansour, Ali
AU - Baria, Alex T.
AU - Huang, Lejian
AU - Berger, Sara E.
AU - Fields, Howard L.
AU - Apkarian, A. Vania
PY - 2013
Y1 - 2013
N2 - In addition to their well-established role in signaling rewarding outcomes and reward-predictive cues and in mediating positive reinforcement, there is growing evidence that nucleus accumbens (NAc) neurons also signal aversive events and cues that predict them. Here we use diffusion tractography to subdivide the right NAc into lateral-rostral (putative core, pcore) and medial-caudal (putative shell, pshell) subdivisions in humans. The two subregions exhibited differential structural connectivity, based on probabilistic tractography, to prefrontal cortical and subcortical limbic regions.Wealso demonstrate unique roles for each of the two subdivisions for monetary reward and thermal pain perception tasks: pshell signaling impending pain and value predictions for monetary gambles and pcore activating with anticipation of cessation of thermal pain (signaling reward value of analgesia). We examined functional connectivity for resting state, monetary reward, and thermal pain tasks, and for all three conditions observed that pcore and pshell of right NAc exhibit distinct patterns of synchrony (functional connectivity) to prefrontal cortical and subcortical limbic targets within the right hemisphere. To validate theNAcsegregation, we mirrored the coordinates of rightNAcpcore and pshell onto the left hemisphere and examined structural and resting state connectivity in the left hemisphere. This latter analysis closely replicated target-specific connections we obtained for the right hemisphere. Overall, we demonstrate that the human NAc can be parceled based on structural and functional connectivity, and that activity in these subdivisions differentially encodes values for expected pain relief and for expected monetary reward.
AB - In addition to their well-established role in signaling rewarding outcomes and reward-predictive cues and in mediating positive reinforcement, there is growing evidence that nucleus accumbens (NAc) neurons also signal aversive events and cues that predict them. Here we use diffusion tractography to subdivide the right NAc into lateral-rostral (putative core, pcore) and medial-caudal (putative shell, pshell) subdivisions in humans. The two subregions exhibited differential structural connectivity, based on probabilistic tractography, to prefrontal cortical and subcortical limbic regions.Wealso demonstrate unique roles for each of the two subdivisions for monetary reward and thermal pain perception tasks: pshell signaling impending pain and value predictions for monetary gambles and pcore activating with anticipation of cessation of thermal pain (signaling reward value of analgesia). We examined functional connectivity for resting state, monetary reward, and thermal pain tasks, and for all three conditions observed that pcore and pshell of right NAc exhibit distinct patterns of synchrony (functional connectivity) to prefrontal cortical and subcortical limbic targets within the right hemisphere. To validate theNAcsegregation, we mirrored the coordinates of rightNAcpcore and pshell onto the left hemisphere and examined structural and resting state connectivity in the left hemisphere. This latter analysis closely replicated target-specific connections we obtained for the right hemisphere. Overall, we demonstrate that the human NAc can be parceled based on structural and functional connectivity, and that activity in these subdivisions differentially encodes values for expected pain relief and for expected monetary reward.
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U2 - 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1731-13.2013
DO - 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1731-13.2013
M3 - Article
C2 - 24107968
AN - SCOPUS:84885134433
SN - 0270-6474
VL - 33
SP - 16383
EP - 16393
JO - Journal of Neuroscience
JF - Journal of Neuroscience
IS - 41
ER -