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The Journal of Neuroscience, September 3, 2003, 23(22):8092-8097
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Human Striatal Response to Salient Nonrewarding Stimuli
Caroline F. Zink,1
Giuseppe Pagnoni,1
Megan E. Martin,1
Mukeshwar Dhamala,1,2 and
Gregory S. Berns1,3
1Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral
Sciences, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia 30322, and
2School of Physics and
3Department of Biomedical Engineering, Georgia
Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332
Although one proposed function of both the striatum and its major dopamine
inputs is related to coding rewards and reward-related stimuli, an alternative
view suggests a more general role of the striatum in processing salient
events, regardless of their reward value. Here we define saliency as an event
that both is unexpected and elicits an attentional-behavioral switch (i.e.,
arousing). In the present study, human striatal responses to nonrewarding
salient stimuli were investigated. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging
(fMRI), the blood oxygenation level-dependent signal was measured in response
to flickering visual distractors presented in the background of an ongoing
task. Distractor salience was manipulated by altering the frequency of
distractor occurrence. Infrequently presented distractors were considered more
salient than frequently presented distractors. We also investigated whether
behavioral relevance of the distractors was a necessary component of saliency
for eliciting striatal responses. In the first experiment (19 subjects), the
distractors were made behaviorally relevant by defining a subset of them as
targets requiring a button press. In the second experiment (17 subjects), the
distractors were not behaviorally relevant (i.e., they did not require any
response). The fMRI results revealed increased activation in the nucleus
accumbens after infrequent (high salience) relative to frequent (low salience)
presentation of distractors in both experiments. Caudate activity increased
only when the distractors were behaviorally relevant. These results
demonstrate a role of the striatum in coding nonrewarding salient events. In
addition, a functional subdivision of the striatum according to the behavioral
relevance of the stimuli is suggested.
Key words: fMRI; striatum; predictability; salience; reward; behavioral relevance
Received May 5, 2003;
revised July 10, 2003;
accepted July 16, 2003.
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