NACS Seminar: Todd Braver (Washington Univ., St. Louis)

Title: Cognitive control and reward-based decision-making

Abstract: Research in my lab investigates the neural mechanisms that give rise to successful cognitive control: the ability to regulate thoughts and actions in an intelligent, goal-directed manner. We have argued that such mechanisms, which involve a network of brain regions centered on the lateral prefrontal cortex, are highly flexible, shifting between a proactive (i.e., anticipatory and sustained) mode, and a reactive (i.e., transient and stimulus-triggered) mode. Thus, the theoretical framework suggests the importance of examining temporal dynamics in the neural mechanisms of cognitive control.

I will provide a brief update on our current project aimed at demonstrating double dissociations in proactive and reactive control across a variety of experimental paradigms. Then I will shift to discuss recent studies examining the influence of proactive control mechanisms in reward-based decision-making, focusing on: a) the effects of motivational incentives; b) decisions about delayed rewards (i.e., inter-temporal choice); and c) decisions about the subjective value of cognitive effort.