Intolerance of uncertainty and insula activation during uncertain reward

Abstract

Individuals with high intolerance of uncertainty (IU) have been shown to exhibit abnormal threat responding, which may be mediated by hyperactive anterior insula (aINS) response to uncertainty. Research has indicated that individuals with high IU also exhibit abnormal positive valence responding, suggesting that IU may impact responding to uncertainty regardless of the valence of the potential outcome. To date, no study has investigated the neural processes associated with IU and response to uncertain positive stimuli, such as rewards. Therefore, this study was designed to examine the association between individual differences in IU and neural activation during uncertain reward using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Thirty-seven adults completed a self-report measure of IU and a reward task during fMRI. Consistent with the threat literature, greater IU was associated with increased aINS activation during uncertain reward. This association was more robust for the prospective IU subscale, a dimension characterized by worry about future events. Together with prior studies, these findings provide evidence that IU is related to abnormal threat and reward responding, and that these deficits may be similarly linked to hyperactive aINS response to uncertainty.

Mapping social reward and punishment processing in the human brain: A voxel-based meta-analysis of neuroimaging findings using the Social Incentive Delay task

“…At the moment, it is still under debate whether the striatum solely responds to salience or might encode both salience and valence of a stimulus (Bartra et al, 2013). The anterior insula, which has dense interconnections with the striatum (Ghaziri et al, 2018), has been implicated in encoding outcome uncertainty (Gorka et al, 2016), which is a key process of the anticipation phase of the SID design. Furthermore, the insula is a key node of the salience network (Menon and Uddin, 2010) and processes ascending interoceptive and visceromotor signals (Ronchi et al, 2015).…”

The uncertain brain: A co-ordinate based meta-analysis of the neural signatures supporting uncertainty during different contexts

“…We created this conceptual category to include tasks investigating the anticipation of a stimuli with an unknown valence (e.g., Sarinopoulos et al, 2010;Schienle et al, 2010;Klumpers et al, 2015) or an unpredictable reward (e.g., Bjork & Hommer, 2007;Gorka, et al, 2016), paradigms exploring feelings of anxiety elicited to temporally unpredictable presentations of a stimulus (e.g., Somerville et al, 2013;Shankman et al 2014). We also included tasks involving anticipation of aversive stimuli with randomized probabilities and unpredictable administration cued by a context (e.g., Alvarez et al, 2015;.…”

Cued for risk: Evidence for an incentive sensitization framework to explain the interplay between stress and anxiety, substance abuse, and reward uncertainty in disordered gambling behavior

“…However, to date, very few studies have directly examined the distinction and overlap of this neurobiological sensitivity to cues and uncertainty in intense positive and negative valence events. The studies that have examined both reward and threat cue processing do suggest highly overlapping neurobiological and psychological processing abnormalities in anxiety disorders that may generally encompass the attribution of value and recruitment of attention to valenced cues, rather than just threat cues (Gorka, Nelson, Phan, & Shankman, 2016;Tanovic et al, 2018). In particular, one human study demonstrated that uncertain rewards, similar to threats, result in increased insula responsivity (Gorka et al, 2016).…”

“…The studies that have examined both reward and threat cue processing do suggest highly overlapping neurobiological and psychological processing abnormalities in anxiety disorders that may generally encompass the attribution of value and recruitment of attention to valenced cues, rather than just threat cues (Gorka, Nelson, Phan, & Shankman, 2016;Tanovic et al, 2018). In particular, one human study demonstrated that uncertain rewards, similar to threats, result in increased insula responsivity (Gorka et al, 2016). Interestingly, although there are dopaminergic neurons that encode for just positive or negative motivational events, there are more numerous dopaminergic neurons that excite similarly to both threatening and rewarding events (Matsumoto & Hikosaka, 2009).…”