@article{MellHeekerenMarschneretal.2005, author = {Mell, Thomas and Heekeren, Hauke R. and Marschner, Alexander and Wartenburger, Isabell and Villringer, Arno and Reischies, Friedel M.}, title = {Effect of aging on stimulus-reward association learning}, issn = {0028-3932}, year = {2005}, abstract = {The flexible learning of stimulus-reward associations when required by situational context is essential for everyday behavior. Older adults experience a progressive decline in several cognitive functions and show deficiencies in neuropsychological tasks requiring flexible adaptation to external feedback, which could be related to impairments in reward association learning. To study the effect of aging on stimulus-reward association learning 20 young and 20 older adults performed a probabilistic object reversal task (pORT) along with a battery of tests assessing executive functions and general intellectual abilities. The pORT requires learning and reversing associations between actions and their outcomes. Older participants collected fewer points, needed more trials to reach the learning criterion, and completed less blocks successfully compared to young adults. This difference remained statistically significant after correcting for the age effect of other tests assessing executive functions. This suggests that there is an age-related difference in reward association learning as measured using the pORT, which is not closely related to other executive functions with respect to the age effect. In human aging, structural alterations of reward detecting structures and functional changes of the dopaminergic as well as the serotonergic system might contribute to the deficit in reward association learning observed in this study. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved}, language = {en} } @article{FatfoutaMeshiMerkletal.2016, author = {Fatfouta, Ramzi and Meshi, Dar and Merkl, Angela and Heekeren, Hauke R.}, title = {Accepting unfairness by a significant other is associated with reduced connectivity between medial prefrontal and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex}, series = {Social Neuroscience}, volume = {13}, journal = {Social Neuroscience}, number = {1}, publisher = {Routledge, Taylor \& Francis Group}, address = {Abingdon}, issn = {1747-0919}, doi = {10.1080/17470919.2016.1252795}, pages = {61 -- 73}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Conflict is a ubiquitous feature of interpersonal relationships, yet many of these relationships preserve their value following conflict. Our ability to refrain from punishment despite the occurrence of conflict is a characteristic of human beings. Using a combination of behavioral and neuroimaging techniques, we show that prosocial decision-making is modulated by relationship closeness. In an iterated social exchange, participants were more likely to cooperate with their partner compared to an unknown person by accepting unfair exchanges. Importantly, this effect was not influenced by how resources were actually being shared with one's partner. The medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) was activated when the partner, rather than the unknown person, behaved unfairly and, in the same context, the MPFC demonstrated greater functional connectivity with the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (DACC). MPFC-DACC connectivity was inversely associated with participants' tendency to "forgive" their partner for unfairness as well as performance outside the scanner on a behavioral measure of forgiveness. We conclude that relationship closeness modulates a neural network comprising the MPFC/DACC during economic exchanges.}, language = {en} }