Using pupil dilation, eye-blink rate, and the value of mother to investigate reward learning mechanisms in infancy.

ABSTRACT: The brain is adapted to learn from interactions with the environment that predict or enable the procurement of rewards (Schultz, 2010). For infants, the main caregiver (often the mother) is most associated with primary biological rewards such as food and warmth, as well as the most likely provider of emotional and social rewards such as comfort and responsiveness. In this study we capitalize on the reward value of mother to examine reward learning mechanisms in infancy using multiple eye-tracking measures. Converging lines of research have demonstrated links between reward-related striatal dopamine activity and measurable changes in spontaneous eye-blink rate (EBR) and pupil dilation (Eckstein et al., 2017). We presented 7-month-old infants with video stimuli that parametrically increased

SUBMITTER: Tummeltshammer K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6698145 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature