Cross-paradigm integration shows a common neural basis for aversive and appetitive conditioning
Sanja Klein,
Onno Kruse,
Isabell Tapia León,
Lukas Van Oudenhove,
Sophie R. van ’t Hof,
Tim Klucken,
Tor D. Wager,
Rudolf Stark
Affiliations
Sanja Klein
Department of Psychotherapy and Systems Neuroscience, Justus Liebig University, Giessen 35394, Germany; Bender Institute for Neuroimaging (BION), Justus Liebig University, Giessen 35394, Germany; Center of Mind, Brain and Behavior, Universities of Marburg and Giessen, Marburg 35032, Germany; Corresponding author at: University of Giessen, Otto-Behaghel-Str. 10 H, Giessen 35394, Germany.
Onno Kruse
Department of Psychotherapy and Systems Neuroscience, Justus Liebig University, Giessen 35394, Germany; Bender Institute for Neuroimaging (BION), Justus Liebig University, Giessen 35394, Germany
Isabell Tapia León
Bender Institute for Neuroimaging (BION), Justus Liebig University, Giessen 35394, Germany; Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, University Siegen, Siegen 57076, Germany
Lukas Van Oudenhove
Department of Chronic Diseases and Metabolism (CHROMETA), Laboratory for Brain-Gut Axis Studies (LaBGAS), Translational Research Centre for Gastrointestinal Disorders TARGID, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium; Leuven Brain Institute, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium; Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Lab, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA
Sophie R. van ’t Hof
Department of Psychiatry, Amsterdam University Medical Centers, Amsterdam 1105 AZ, The Netherlands
Tim Klucken
Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, University Siegen, Siegen 57076, Germany
Tor D. Wager
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience Lab, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA
Rudolf Stark
Department of Psychotherapy and Systems Neuroscience, Justus Liebig University, Giessen 35394, Germany; Bender Institute for Neuroimaging (BION), Justus Liebig University, Giessen 35394, Germany; Center of Mind, Brain and Behavior, Universities of Marburg and Giessen, Marburg 35032, Germany
Sharing imaging data and comparing them across different psychological tasks is becoming increasingly possible as the open science movement advances. Such cross-paradigm integration has the potential to identify commonalities in findings that neighboring areas of study thought to be paradigm-specific. However, even the integration of research from closely related paradigms, such as aversive and appetitive classical conditioning is rare – even though qualitative comparisons already hint at how similar the ‘fear network’ and ‘reward network’ may be. We aimed to validate these theories by taking a multivariate approach to assess commonalities across paradigms empirically. Specifically, we quantified the similarity of an aversive conditioning pattern derived from meta-analysis to appetitive conditioning fMRI data. We tested pattern expression in three independent appetitive conditioning studies with 29, 76 and 38 participants each. During fMRI scanning, participants in each cohorts performed an appetitive conditioning task in which a CS+ was repeatedly rewarded with money and a CS- was never rewarded. The aversive pattern was highly similar to appetitive CS+ > CS- contrast maps across samples and variations of the appetitive conditioning paradigms. Moreover, the pattern distinguished the CS+ from the CS- with above-chance accuracy in every sample. These findings provide robust empirical evidence for an underlying neural system common to appetitive and aversive learning. We believe that this approach provides a way to empirically integrate the steadily growing body of fMRI findings across paradigms.