Humans do not integrate new information objectively: outcomes carrying a positive affective
value and evidence confirming one's own prior belief are overweighed. Until recently …

An enduring and richly elaborated dichotomy in cognitive neuroscience is that of reflective
versus reflexive decision making and choice. Other literatures refer to the two ends of what is …

After more than a century of work concentrating on the motor functions of the basal ganglia,
new ideas have emerged, suggesting that the basal ganglia also have major functions in …

Nearly 40 years of research on the function of the nucleus accumbens (NAc) has provided a
wealth of information on its contributions to behavior but has also yielded controversies and …

The midbrain dopamine (DA) neurons play a central role in developing appropriate goal-
directed behaviors, including the motivation and cognition to develop appropriate actions to …

Evidence supports at least two methods for learning about reward and punishment and
making predictions for guiding actions. One method, called model-free, progressively …

Cognitive control is subjectively costly, suggesting that engagement is modulated in
relationship to incentive state. Dopamine appears to play key roles. In particular, dopamine …

Decisions occur in dynamic environments. In the framework of reinforcement learning, the
probability of performing an action is influenced by decision variables. Discrepancies …

Compared with reward seeking, punishment avoidance learning is less clearly understood
at both the computational and neurobiological levels. Here we demonstrate, using …

Decision-making invokes two fundamental axes of control: affect or valence, spanning
reward and punishment, and effect or action, spanning invigoration and inhibition. We …