Elsevier

NeuroImage

Volume 96, 1 August 2014, Pages 12-21
NeuroImage

P300 amplitude variation is related to ventral striatum BOLD response during gain and loss anticipation: An EEG and fMRI experiment

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2014.03.077Get rights and content
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Highlights

  • Monetary incentive delay task was assessed in separate EEG and fMRI sessions.

  • Both gain and loss anticipation activated well known reward-related areas.

  • P300 amplitude differentiated reward cue from non-reward cues.

  • P300 amplitudes positively correlated with BOLD response in the ventral striatum.

  • Ventral striatum activation associated with general motivational processes.

Abstract

The anticipation of favourable or unfavourable events is a key component in our daily life. However, the temporal dynamics of anticipation processes in relation to brain activation are still not fully understood.

A modified version of the monetary incentive delay task was administered during separate functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalogram (EEG) sessions in the same 25 participants to assess anticipatory processes with a multi-modal neuroimaging set-up.

During fMRI, gain and loss anticipation were both associated with heightened activation in ventral striatum and reward-related areas. EEG revealed most pronounced P300 amplitudes for gain anticipation, whereas CNV amplitudes distinguished neutral from gain and loss anticipation. Importantly, P300, but not CNV amplitudes, were correlated to neural activation in the ventral striatum for both gain and loss anticipation. Larger P300 amplitudes indicated higher ventral striatum blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) response.

Early stimulus evaluation processes indexed by EEG seem to be positively related to higher activation levels in the ventral striatum, indexed by fMRI, which are usually associated with reward processing. The current results, however, point towards a more general motivational mechanism processing salient stimuli during anticipation.

Keywords

Anticipation
Reward
Monetary incentive delay task
fMRI
EEG
Motivation

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1

DMP and EMS contributed equally to this manuscript.