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Neurophysiology of Motivated Learning: Adaptive Mechanisms Underlying Cognitive Bias in Depression

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Abstract

Cognitive Behavior Therapy for depression focuses on changing cognitive appraisals of the self and life events. This approach contrasts with behaviorist approaches to clinical disorders, which focused on elementary learning explanations and assumed that cognitive mediation is irrelevant. A better integration of behavioral analysis with cognitive therapy could be facilitated by the theoretical advances in animal learning theory over the last several decades. Animals have been found to respond to events in relation to mental representations of the reward value of those events. The evidence now shows that learning in mammals cannot be explained by passive behaviorist association principles, but requires a theoretical understanding of the animal’s hedonic expectancies and its adaptive response to discrepancies from those expectancies. The mechanisms of cognitive representation and information handling that are implied by modern learning theory have presented clear and specific challenges to neurophysiological theories of motivational control of learning and memory. The mechanisms of human motivational control appear to be similar to those of other mammals, suggesting that progress with understanding neurophysiological mechanisms of hedonic evaluation, frustration, and action regulation will soon provide the opportunity for a comprehensive neuropsychological model to guide diagnosis and treatment of depressive disorders.

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Steve Keele for pointing out the importance of modern learning theory for understanding cognitive self-regulation. This research was supported by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health (MH42129 and MH70911) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Augmented Cognition Program).

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  1. Electrical Geodesics, Inc., 1600 Millrace Drive, Eugene, OR, 97403, USA

    Don M. Tucker & Phan Luu

  2. Psychology Department, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, 97403, USA

    Don M. Tucker & Phan Luu

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Correspondence to Don M. Tucker.

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Tucker, D.M., Luu, P. Neurophysiology of Motivated Learning: Adaptive Mechanisms Underlying Cognitive Bias in Depression. Cogn Ther Res 31, 189–209 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-006-9115-9

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