NON-HUMAN PRIMATE INTEROCEPTION AFFECTS DECISION-MAKING DURING APPROACH-AVOIDANCE CONFLICT TASK

Abstract

Interoception involves the signals within the body used to interpret its physiological condition. These signals may include heartrate, breathing rate, and even the sensation of how full the stomach is with food. We investigate how interoception influences decision-making and what would occur if we could alter interoception from its normal state. More specifically, we induced a heartrate increase (a sympathetic-dominated visceral state) in our monkey subjects using a drug, glycopyrrolate, and had our subjects perform in an approach-avoidance conflict task. This type of decision-making task involved subjects choosing between 1) receiving an aversive heat stimulus while simultaneously receiving a consistent reward of juice, or 2) turning off the heat but giving up the juice. The reaction time to turn off the heat was measured and compared before and after the glycopyrrolate. Monkeys also performed in a reward-only task and their food preferences were analyzed before and after glycopyrrolate. We found that a negative outcome in a sympathetic-dominated state increases avoidance, as glycopyrrolate shortened the time the monkey tolerated the heat. On the other hand, reward preference and seeking were not affected during a sympathetic-dominated state. These findings conclude that altering the internal state of the body will subsequently alter decision-making.