The rat medial frontal cortex (MFC) has been implicated in allowing animals to work harder
to receive larger rewards. However, it is unknown what role the individual MFC regions …

Both the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and mesolimbic dopamine, particularly in the
nucleus accumbens (NAc), have been implicated in allowing an animal to overcome effort …

Integrating costs and benefits is crucial for optimal decision-making. Although much is
known about decisions that involve outcome-related costs (eg, delay, risk), many of our …

Impairments in decision making about risks and rewards have been observed in patients
with amygdala damage. Similarly, lesions of the basolateral amygdala (BLA) in rodents …

How we decide whether a course of action is worth undertaking is largely unknown.
Recently, neuroscientists have been turning to ecological approaches to address this issue …

Optimal decision-making often requires an assessment of the costs and benefits associated
with each available course of action. Previous studies have shown that lesions to the …

Successful decision making often requires weighing a given option's costs against its
associated benefits, an ability that appears perturbed in virtually every severe mental illness …

In everyday life, we have to decide whether it is worth exerting effort to obtain rewards. Effort
can be experienced in different domains, with some tasks requiring significant cognitive …

Decision-making policies are subject to modulation by changing motivational states.
However, so far, little is known about the neurochemical mechanisms that bridge …

In both the wild and the laboratory, animals' preferences for one course of action over
another reflect not just reward expectations but also the cost in terms of effort that must be …