Prolonged Physiological Stress Is Associated With a Lower Rate of Exploratory Learning That Is Compounded by Depression

Kaske, Erika A; Chen, Cathy S.; Meyer, Collin; Yang, Flora; Ebitz, R. Becket; Grissom, Nicola M.; Kapoor, Amita; Darrow, David; Herman, Alex W.

doi:10.1016/j.bpsc.2022.12.004

Cited by 9 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 65 publications

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“…However, exploitation must be balanced with continued exploration as environments and their reward probabilities change. Dysregulation in this exploration-exploitation tradeoff can be observed in the phenotypes of numerous neuropsychiatric disorders and challenges, including schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorders, addictions, and chronic stress [14][15][16][17][18]. Understanding the fundamental mechanisms impacting the computations in our brain that underlie the balance between exploration and exploitation could help identify critical circuits that are associated with differential risk factors of neuropsychiatric disorders and open avenues for novel interventions for executive function challenges.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dopamine and norepinephrine differentially mediate the exploration-exploitation tradeoff

Chen

Mueller

Knep

et al. 2023

Preprint

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The catecholamines dopamine (DA) and norepinephrine (NE) have been repeatedly implicated in neuropsychiatric vulnerability, in part via their roles in mediating the decision making processes. Although the two neuromodulators share a synthesis pathway and are co-activated under states of arousal, they engage in distinct circuits and roles in modulating neural activity across the brain. However, in the computational neuroscience literature, they have been assigned similar roles in modulating the latent cognitive processes of decision making, in particular the exploration-exploitation tradeoff. Revealing how each neuromodulator contributes to this explore-exploit process will be important in guiding mechanistic hypotheses emerging from computational psychiatric approaches. To understand the differences and overlaps of the roles of these two catecholamine systems in regulating exploration and exploitation, a direct comparison using the same dynamic decision making task is needed. Here, we ran mice in a restless two-armed bandit task, which encourages both exploration and exploitation. We systemically administered a nonselective DA receptor antagonist (flupenthixol), a nonselective DA receptor agonist (apomorphine), a NE beta-receptor antagonist (propranolol), and a NE beta-receptor agonist (isoproterenol), and examined changes in exploration within subjects across sessions. We found a bidirectional modulatory effect of dopamine receptor activity on the level of exploration. Increasing dopamine activity decreased exploration and decreasing dopamine activity increased exploration. Beta-noradrenergic receptor activity also modulated exploration, but the modulatory effect was mediated by sex. Reinforcement learning model parameters suggested that dopamine modulation affected exploration via decision noise and norepinephrine modulation affected exploration via outcome sensitivity. Together, these findings suggested that the mechanisms that govern the transition between exploration and exploitation are sensitive to changes in both catecholamine functions and revealed differential roles for NE and DA in mediating exploration.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dopamine and norepinephrine differentially mediate the exploration-exploitation tradeoff

Chen

Mueller

Knep

et al. 2023

Preprint

Self Cite

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“…It should be emphasised that the positive effect VSM has on physiological stress is of great social benefit, as physiological stress is a driving force for depression [89][90][91] and a number of cardiovascular diseases from hypertension to heart attacks to insomnia and obesity [92][93][94][95][96]. These results provide further evidence in support of the utility for vibroacoustic VSM technology.…”

Section: Relevance and Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 79%

Effects of Vibroacoustic Stimulation on Psychological, Physiological and Cognitive Stress

Fooks,

Niebuhr

2024

Preprint

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Global stress is widespread in todays post-pandemic world of political and economic uncertainty. Vibroacoustic technology is a vibrotactile intervention with multiple uses, and its impact on stress lacks interpretation. This research assessed if the vibroacoustic technology of a Vibroacoustic Sound Massage (VSM) can reduce psychological, physiological and cognitive stress. The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10), and electrocardiogram (ECG) and electroencephalogram (EEG) biosignals were used to quantify results. Participants were divided into Low Stress and High Stress groups. ECG results show VSM increased parasympathetic activity for all participants, with the Low Stress group more effected. EEG results indicate increased concentration (TBR), reduced arousal and increased relaxation (BAR), and non-significant effects on participant well-being (FAA), though variability in this metric was homogenised after VSM. Together, these results validate VSM as an effective support tool for stress management and further research is required.

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“…In order to determine why primates switched less frequently during the persistent regime, we categorised individual choices based on the underlying reason for those decisions. Specifically, we used a Hidden Markov Model (HMM; Figure 2C ; see Methods ) to infer whether individual choices were more likely to be due to a state of exploratory, trial- and-error sampling or a state of exploitative choices to a single option (Ebitz et al, 2018, 2019; Chen et al, 2021b; Kaske et al, 2023). Example choice sequences, with labels, are in Figure 2D .…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, our capacity to strike a balance between exploitation and exploration is also fragile. The balance is easily thrown off by stress (Kaske et al, 2023) and drug addiction (Verdejo-García et al, 2006) and is dysregulated in many neurological conditions, like obsessive-compulsive disorder (Tolin et al, 2009), depression (Blanco et al, 2013), anxiety (Teng et al, 2016), and ADHD (Mäntylä et al, 2012). Because evolution tends to canalise phenotypes over time (Waddington, 1942; Siegal and Bergman, 2002)—making behaviour more robust against influence of environmental and developmental perturbations—these results could suggest that the human capacity to balance exploration and exploitation may have evolved relatively recently.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Persistent Decision-Making in Mice, Monkeys, and Humans

Laurie,

Shourkeshti,

Chen

et al. 2024

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Humans have the capacity to persist in behavioural policies, even in challenging environments that lack immediate reward. Our persistence is the scaffold on which many higher executive functions are built. However, it remains unclear whether humans are uniquely persistent or, instead, if this capacity is widely conserved across species. To address this question, we compared humans with mice and monkeys in harmonised versions of an uncertain decision-making task. The task encouraged all species to strike a balance between persistently exploiting one policy and exploring alternative policies that could become better at any moment. Although all three species had similar strategies, we found that both primate species (humans and monkeys) were able to persist in exploitation for much longer than the mice. We speculate that the similarities in persistence patterns in humans and monkeys, as opposed to mice, may be linked to ecological, neurobiological, or cognitive factors that differ systematically between these species.

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Prolonged Physiological Stress Is Associated With a Lower Rate of Exploratory Learning That Is Compounded by Depression

Cited by 9 publications

References 65 publications

Dopamine and norepinephrine differentially mediate the exploration-exploitation tradeoff

Dopamine and norepinephrine differentially mediate the exploration-exploitation tradeoff

Effects of Vibroacoustic Stimulation on Psychological, Physiological and Cognitive Stress

Persistent Decision-Making in Mice, Monkeys, and Humans

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