Jeudi 15 mai 2014 - 10h > 11h
Mathias Pessiglione, Inserm, ICM - Institut du cerveau et de la moelle épinière
The neural code of subjective value
Abstract: The “neuro-economics” research program postulates that subjective values underpinning choice behavior can be identified in neural signals. In this talk, I will first provide evidence that subjective values are indeed reflected in a dedicated brain system, with the ventromedial prefrontal cortex as a key component. Then I will highlight some properties of this “brain valuation system” (BVS) that complicate the decoding of subjective values but explain some deviations from rational behavior, such as preference instability. Finally, I will intend to cast light on two questions: 1) whether BVS activity is associated to emotional feelings, 2) whether the BVS signals both anticipated and experiences rewards (desire and pleasure).
Jeudi 15 mai 2014 - 11h15 > 12h
Agnes Moors, Ghent University
Dissociations registered in different behavioral channels may point at conflicting wantings and their corresponding likings rather than at liking without wanting and wanting without liking.
Abstract: The concepts of liking and wanting refer to two (or better four) phases in a typical action control loops (e.g., Carver & Scheier, 2002). In such a loop, wanting and liking go together: we like what we want and we want what we like. Two questions arise: (1) Can wanting and liking become decoupled? (2) Are the cases that are given as examples of a decoupling really cases of decoupling? Before reverting to the conclusion that dissociations on a behavioral/phenomenological level point at dissociations on a hidden/mechanism level, we should examine the alternative that they point at different conflicting goals (one leading to approach plus liking and the other to avoidance plus disliking), and for which the end states are at different psychological distances (short-term/long-term).
Jeudi 15 mai 2014 - 12h15 > 13h
Helen Tibboel, Ghent University
Dissociations between “wanting” and “liking” in addiction
Abstract: Incentive Sensitization Theory (IST; e.g., Robinson & Berridge, 1993) suggests that drug “wanting” (incentive salience) and not drug “liking” (the hedonic experience when one consumes drugs) plays an essential role in the development and maintenance of drug addiction. Many researchers have aimed at examining this hypothesized dissociation between “wanting” and “liking” using behavioural (implicit) measures. We will first discuss the different ways in which “wanting” and “liking” are defined within IST, and the different ways these concepts have been proceduralized. Subsequently, we will critically discuss the evidence for dissociations between “wanting” and “liking”. Furthermore, we will point out the major methodological and theoretical problems that prevent us from drawing clear conclusions regarding this topic. Finally, we will make some recommendations to advance the study of “wanting” and “liking” in the context of addiction.
Jeudi 15 mai 2014 - 14h30 > 15h30
Gabriel Robert, King College London et Université de Rennes 1
Apathy and emotional deficiencies in Parkinson disease and schizophrenia
Abstract: We propose to review the current literature about emotional disorders and their link to apathy (defined by lack of motivation) in neuropsychiatric disorders. We further propose to have a deeper insight into the relationship between apathy and emotional facial recognition within Parkinson's disease and highlight the cerebral structures involved. We also propose to use an innovative skin conductance recording (SCR) deconvolution technique to test whether apathy si related to tonic SCR activity during joy induction in schizophrenia.
Jeudi 15 mai 2014 - 15h45 > 16h45
Jennifer Corns, Glasgow University
The causal profile of negative hedonic tone
Abstract: Negative hedonic tone is the unpleasantness that is paradigmatic of experiences like e.g. pain, grief, boredom, and nausea. This unpleasantness has often been characterized in terms of phenomena on which we have an antecedent grip. The most popularly proffered are a) homeostatic utility; b) motivational states; c) evaluations; d) desires or preferences; and e) expectations. In this talk, I argue that negative hedonic tone is only contingently, causally related to a-e and should accordingly be characterized independently. I close by further suggesting that negative hedonic tone may not only have a wide causal profile, but--against my earlier self--may be reason responsive.
Jeudi 15 mai 2014 - 17h > 18h
Tim Schroeder, Ohio State University
Psychological Hedonism Refuted by Philosophy and Neuroscience, Working Together
Abstract: Psychological hedonism is the thesis that pleasure, or the avoidance of pain, is ultimately the only end sought by anyone, everything else being sought just as a means to these ends. Philosophers have both embraced it and rejected it since ancient times, and psychologists have been similarly ambivalent for as long as psychology has been a distinct discipline. Recently Kent Berridge has made new arguments against psychological hedonism, drawing on his work distinguishing "wanting" and "liking" systems in the brain. I argue that Berridge's arguments are not successful on their own, but that successful arguments can be made drawing upon the neuroscience that he and others have engaged in, along with some philosophical principles.
Vendredi 16 Mai 2014 - 8h30 > 9h30
Stéphane Lemaire, Université de Rennes 1
Isn’t there a version of psychological hedonism that could be saved ?
Abstract: The state of the art in philosophy and neurosciences seems to advocate strongly against psychological hedonism, the view according to which our desires aim at pleasure. However, if this kind of psychological hedonism is certainly false, could we not defend other weaker versions? In this presentation, I review several such possibilities and I explore the evidence available to assess the various direct and indirect links that relate motivation to pleasure. In particular, I wonder whether the experience of pleasure (or displeasure) is necessary in order to acquire new motivations and maybe in order to preserve them (or some of them). Such views may be compatible with the existence of subjects who would be motivated without having any experience of pleasure. However, this may not be a very strong argument if these lives appear devoid of any exciting goal.
Vendredi 16 Mai 2014 - 9h45 > 10h45
Serge Luquet, Université Paris-Diderot
Motivational and rewarding aspect of feeding: learning from mice models
Abstract: The reinforcing and motivational aspects of food are closely tied to the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine, which is stimulated by high-fat/high-sugar foods as well as by most other objects of desire (e.g., sex, drugs). In particular, the projection of midbrain dopamine (DA) neurons in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) to the nucleus accumbens (NAc) and other limbic brain regions is a crucial neural substrate upon which drugs of abuse (e.g., cocaine, nicotine, morphine) exert their effect; and thus this projection is often referred to as the brain ‘reward circuit’. But ‘reward’ is also the psychological process underlying reinforced behaviors. Rewards are objects or goals that produce 1) pleasure or hedonia ‘liking’ 2) approach or consummatory behavior ‘wanting’ and 3) reinforcement – the strengthening of the association between an unconditioned (primary reward, like food) and a conditioned stimulus (anything that predicts that reward, like the smell of food) that results when the two are presented together. We will discuss how experimental models using mice genetics have helped to decipher the different component of reward and the possible distinction between learning, wanting and liking.
Vendredi 16 Mai 2014 - 11h > 12h
Marc Vérin, Université de Rennes 1
Emotions, motivation and basal ganglia in human: What can we learn from deep brain stimulation?
Abstract: There is growing evidence of a link between both emotional and motivational impairment and deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the subthalamic nucleus (STN), a treatment that constitutes a therapeutic advance for severely disabled Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients. In this context, the STN DBS PD patient model seems to represent a unique opportunity for studying the functional role of the STN in emotional and motivational processing in human. In the present seminar, we will focus first on information relevant to emotional and motivational processing in PD before and after STN DBS. We then discuss the functional roles of the STN in emotional and motivational processing assuming that the STN plays a central role in these human abilities among the basal ganglia circuitry.
Vendredi 16 Mai 2014 - 13h30 > 14h30
Richard Holton, Cambridge University
What’s the good of pleasure?
Abstract: The incentive salience account of desire suggests that desire and pleasure are distinct. If that is right, what is the role of pleasure? Balleine and Dickinson have argued that it sits at the cognitive-motivational interface. I explore the ramifications of this account, and ask what it says about the implementation of self-control.
Vendredi 16 Mai 2014 - 14h45 > 16h
Didier Grandjean, Université de Genève
The triad of desire, appraisal, and habits: towards a neuroscientific perspective
Abstract: The appraisal theories in emotion have proposed that different kinds of appraisal are essential in emotion elicitation and differentiation, opening the possibility to characterize interindividual bias patterns and different probabilities to feel specific emotions. Desires might be conceptualized as overlearned stabilized patterns of expectations and related rewards, constituted, at least partially, by these appraisal bias. Recent empirical research have underlined the role of basal ganglia and their functional interactions with frontal regions in the context of habits or overlearned patterns of behavior, being in turn related to specific expected rewards. I will address these concepts in the light of recent research in neuroscience in animals and humans.
Vendredi 16 Mai 2014 - 16h : fin des travaux
