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Task-relevant social cues affect whole-body approach-avoidance behavior.

ABSTRACT: Positively evaluated stimuli facilitate approach and negatively evaluated stimuli prompt avoidance responses, as typically measured by reaction time differences when moving a joystick toward the own body or away from it. In this study, we explore whether a whole-body response (forward and backward leaning can serve as a better indicator of approach-avoidance behavior; AA). Thirty-two subjects were presented with pictures of males and females with angry or happy facial expressions. Subjects had to perform approach or avoidance responses by leaning forward or backward, either based on the facial expression of the stimulus or the gender of the stimulus. Leaning responses were sensitive to angry faces for explicit decision cues. Here, angry facial expressions facilitated backward leaning but not when responding to the gender of the stimulus. We compare this to the established manual measure of AA and discuss our results with regard to response coding.

SUBMITTER: Welsch R

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10219979 | biostudies-literature | 2023 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Task-relevant social cues affect whole-body approach-avoidance behavior.

Welsch Robin R Hecht Heiko H Stins John J

Scientific reports 20230526 1

Positively evaluated stimuli facilitate approach and negatively evaluated stimuli prompt avoidance responses, as typically measured by reaction time differences when moving a joystick toward the own body or away from it. In this study, we explore whether a whole-body response (forward and backward leaning can serve as a better indicator of approach-avoidance behavior; AA). Thirty-two subjects were presented with pictures of males and females with angry or happy facial expressions. Subjects had t ...[more]

PMID: 37237067

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Project description:Decisions under threat are crucial to survival and require integration of distinct situational features, such as threat probability and magnitude. Recent evidence from human lesion and neuroimaging studies implicated anterior hippocampus (aHC) and amygdala in approach-avoidance decisions under threat, and linked their integrity to cautious behavior. Here we sought to elucidate how threat dimensions and behavior are represented in these structures. Twenty human participants (11 female) completed an approach-avoidance conflict task during high-resolution fMRI. Participants could gather tokens under threat of capture by a virtual predator, which would lead to token loss. Threat probability (predator wake-up rate) and magnitude (amount of token loss) varied on each trial. To disentangle effects of threat features, and ensuing behavior, we performed a multifold parametric analysis. We found that high threat probability and magnitude related to BOLD signal in left aHC/entorhinal cortex. However, BOLD signal in this region was better explained by avoidance behavior than by these threat features. A priori ROI analysis confirmed the relation of aHC BOLD response with avoidance. Exploratory subfield analysis revealed that this relation was specific to anterior CA2/3 but not CA1. Left lateral amygdala responded to low and high, but not intermediate, threat probability. Our results suggest that aHC BOLD signal is better explained by avoidance behavior than by threat features in approach-avoidance conflict. Rather than representing threat features in a monotonic manner, it appears that aHC may compute approach-avoidance decisions based on integration of situational threat features represented in other neural structures.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT An effective threat anticipation system is crucial to survival across species. Natural threats, however, are diverse and have distinct features. To be able to adapt to different modes of danger, the brain needs to recognize these features, integrate them, and use them to modify behavior. Our results disclose the human anterior hippocampus as a likely arbiter of approach-avoidance decisions harnessing compound environmental information while partially replicating previous findings and blending into recent efforts to illuminate the neural basis of approach-avoidance conflict in humans.

Dataset Information

Task-relevant social cues affect whole-body approach-avoidance behavior.

Publications

Task-relevant social cues affect whole-body approach-avoidance behavior.

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