Objective
Objectives. This project seeks to understand the psychobiology of reinforcement in health and illness. The neural processing of, and behavioural response to, reward and punishment drives learning, skill acquisition and socialization. It shapes behaviours from the most primitive (fight/flight, ingest/avoid,) to complex (buy/sell).Motivated by evidence for a direct link between the tongue muscle and the midbrain regions involved in the extrapolation of reward properties from stimuli, I will test the hypothesis that appetitive stimuli along the rewarding-punishing continuum are mapped in a specific somatotopic pattern of intra-oral muscles measurable as changes in motor cortex excitability. I will further test an embodied cognition hypothesis that the same circuitry that is activated by appetitive stimuli also mediate more evolutionarily advanced reinforcers such as monetary compensation and social disgust. Methods.Single pulse TMS elicited Motor Evocated Potentials (MEPs) recorded from the tongue will serve as a measure of cortico-bulbar neuronal excitability during vision and/or smelling a range of rewarding/punishing stimuli.The excitability of cortico-bulbar innervation of the tongue could be particularly informative as a somatic marker of the activity in the reward-related neural circuits, and may provide a direct measure of the hedonic/disliking dimension conveyed by reinforcers. Relevance to the Work Programme. The project addresses the challenge for neuroscience to provide conceptual tools and methodologies for understanding, predicting and modelling the influences of reinforcement on human behaviour including economic decision making. An understanding of deranged processing and responding
to reinforcing stimuli is also critical across a range of challenges to Psychology, medicine and to society as a whole, including brain damage, eating disorders, additction, sociopathy, pathological gambling and challenging behaviours in developmentally disabled children.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
FP7-PEOPLE-2012-IEF
See other projects for this call
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Coordinator
LL57 2DG Bangor
United Kingdom
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.