Control of nucleus accumbens activity with neurofeedback
Open accessAbstract
The nucleus accumbens (NAcc) plays critical roles in healthy motivation and learning, as well as in psychiatric disorders (including schizophrenia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). Thus, techniques that confer control of NAcc activity might inspire new therapeutic interventions. By providing second-to-second temporal resolution of activity in small subcortical regions, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) can resolve online changes in NAcc activity, which can then be presented as "neurofeedback." In an fMRI-based neurofeedback experiment designed to elicit NAcc activity, we found that subjects could increase their own NAcc activity, and that display of neurofeedback significantly enhanced their ability to do so. Subjects were not as capable of decreasing their NAcc activity, however, and enhanced control did not persist after subsequent removal of neurofeedback. Further analyses suggested that individuals who recruited positive aroused affect were better able to increase NAcc activity in response to neurofeedback, and that NAcc neurofeedback also elicited functionally correlated activity in the medial prefrontal cortex. Together, these findings suggest that humans can modulate their own NAcc activity and that fMRI-based neurofeedback may augment their efforts. The observed association between positive arousal and effective NAcc control further supports an anticipatory affect account of NAcc function.
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fMRI neurofeedback can train non-psychiatric individuals to increase NAcc activity, which also elicits positive arousal.
“fMRI-based neurofeedback has successfully been used in non-psychiatric samples to train individuals to increase NAcc activity, which also elicited feelings of positive arousal [161].”
From Toward a neurocircuit-based taxonomy to guide treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder (2021) · cites this paper as [161]
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- Authors
- Greer, S. M., Trujillo, A. J., Glover, G. H., & Knutson, B.
- Affiliations
- Stanford University (US)
- Stanford Medicine (US)
- Corresponding author
- Knutson, Brian
- Venue
- NeuroImage
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2014-08
- Volume
- 96
- Pages
- 237-244
- ISSN
- 1053-8119 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4181613
- OpenAlex
- W2135400848
- Cited by
- 92
- References
- 41
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 20 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 13 · 2018: 8 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 6 · 2015: 8 · 2014: 3
- FWCI
- 4.28
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- NeuroImage (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute on Drug Abuse (DA R03-020615)
- National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (P41 EB-01589)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience › Neurotransmitter Receptor Influence on Behavior
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Functional Brain Connectivity Studies
- Keywords
- nucleus accumbens, neurofeedback, self-regulation of brain activity, positive affect, arousal, medial prefrontal cortex, motivation, schizophrenia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Arousal, Attention, Brain Mapping, Female, Humans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Motivation, Nerve Net, Nucleus Accumbens, Prefrontal Cortex, Young Adult, Neurofeedback
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