Dissociation between the processing of humorous and monetary rewards in the 'motivation' and 'hedonic' brains.

ABSTRACT: Humor elicits feelings of amusement and can be thought of as a social reward. We identified distinct mesolimbic reward system (MRS) processing patterns for monetary and humorous rewards. During both the reward anticipation and outcome phases, the nucleus accumbens (NAc) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) were active in response to monetary cues and monetary gains, while the amygdala and midbrain showed a differential response to humorous rewards, apparently driven by the hedonic enjoyment and appreciation of humor consumption. Psychophysiological interaction analysis (PPI) further demonstrated the functional coupling of the amygdala-midbrain circuit in response to humorous gains during the reward outcome phase, while neural signaling was observed in the NAc-ACC circuit during both the rew

SUBMITTER: Chan YC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6194129 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature