Medial prefrontal cortical control of reward‐ and aversion‐based behavioral output: Bottom‐up modulation

Abstract

How does the brain guide our actions? This is a complex issue, where the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) plays a crucial role. The mPFC is essential for cognitive flexibility and decision making. These functions are related to reward-and aversionbased learning, which ultimately drive behavior. Though, cortical projections and modulatory systems that may regulate those processes in the mPFC are less understood. How does the mPFC regulate approach-avoidance behavior in the case of conflicting aversive and appetitive stimuli? This is likely dependent on the bottomup neuromodulation of the mPFC projection neurons. In this review, we integrate behavioral-, pharmacological-, and viral-based circuit manipulation data showing the involvement of mPFC dopaminergic, noradrenergic, cholinergic, and serotoninergic inputs in reward and aversion processing. Given that an incorrect balance of reward and aversion value could be a key problem in mental diseases such as substance use disorders, we discuss outstanding questions for future research on the role of mPFC modulation in reward and aversion.

Loneliness and the Social Brain: How Perceived Social Isolation Impairs Human Interactions

“…The mPFC has been previously implicated in loneliness, [ 14 , 37 ] but our findings have to be interpreted with caution as the reduced trust‐associated activity in HL participants could not be replicated across different analytic approaches. Like the AI, the mPFC is known to interact with various limbic regions, encode the expected value of stimuli, [ 38 , 39 ] evaluate trait characteristics of others, [ 40 ] and predict trusting behavior. [ 34 , 41 ] The observed attenuated mPFC activity during the trust game might thus reflect a reduced utility of social stimuli, as lonely individuals potentially prefer safety behavior irrespective of the trustworthiness of the partner.…”

“…[ 42 ] In addition, the reduced mPFC activity might be linked to the attenuated recruitment of the amygdala and the NAcc. [ 38 , 42 ]…”

Cortical Face-Selective Responses Emerge Early in Human Infancy

“…Under this framework, seeing engaging human faces, hearing self-relevant voices, and pro-social touch would activate infants' reward network, resulting in increased attention to socially relevant stimuli. In support of this hypothesis, infant STS responds to social perception in the auditory [79,91,109,110], visual [74,76,90,91], and tactile [111] domains while MPFC is part of the reward network [112][113][114][115] and responds to socially self-relevant environmental cues in infants [79,81,82,[106][107][108]. In infants, affective touch enhances infants' attention to faces [116] and increases functional coupling between STS and MPFC [117], while auditory language modulates activity in STS and MPFC [110,118].…”

Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy and Bipolar Disorder: How Feasible Is This Pairing?

“…This variation may be due to the region studied, to the different subgroups of BD studied, to an undetermined effect of the medication, or to the limited number of patients studied [ 26 ]. Additionally, affected regions such as the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), prefrontal cortex (PFC), and hippocampus play important roles in cognitive and behavioral ability, memory function, and emotion processing [ 30 - 32 ]. For instance, alterations in the ACC have a negative effect on the ability to adapt and increase the risk of suicide in patients with BD [ 33 , 34 ].…”