Periodic Reporting for period 1 - CHEMCONTROL (Balancing brain chemicals for boosting meta-control)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2023-04-01 al 2025-09-30
Cognitive control facilitates flexible adaptive behaviour, requiring goal-directed effort to suppress undesired biases linked to the prefrontal cortex and dopamine (DA). Nevertheless, the mechanisms of broader flexible cognitive control remain unclear. CHEMCONTROL's main objective is to construct, evaluate, and refine a causal neurocomputational model that governs dynamic meta-control of various behavioural control strategies. This project specifically tests the hypothesis that different systems (dopaminergic and serotoninergic projections) are prioritized based on assessments of environmental controllability. The concept of controllability is fundamental to clinically significant issues such as learned helplessness and the illusion of control. Understanding their neurochemical mechanisms is essential for creating effective stress coping strategies tailored to individual contexts and needs.
In the context of the project, we have developed a novel experimental paradigm that quantifies the effects of manipulating environmental controllability on control behaviour, control perception, physiological stress responses, and associated neural activity in the relevant cortico-subcortical circuits. Currently, multiple behavioural, interventional, and neuroimaging studies are ongoing using this paradigm. Furthermore, we are developing and validating a formal computational model that accounts for the effects of manipulating controllability. Both the empirical results and the computational modelling outcomes are used to test and revise our theoretical framework describing the mechanisms of adaptive behaviour in response to controllable and uncontrollable environmental demands.