The Neurobiology of Cognitive Fatigue and Its Influence on Effort-Based Choice - PMC

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bioRxiv<br>[Preprint]. 2024 Jul 18:2024.07.15.603598. [Version 1] doi: 10.1101/2024.07.15.603598

The Neurobiology of Cognitive Fatigue and Its Influence on Effort-Based Choice

Grace Steward<br>Grace Steward

1Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA

Find articles by Grace Steward

1, Vikram S Chib<br>Vikram S Chib

1Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA

2Kavli Neuroscience Discovery Institute, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA

3Kennedy Krieger Institute, Baltimore, MD, USA

Find articles by Vikram S Chib

1,2,3,*

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1Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA

2Kavli Neuroscience Discovery Institute, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA

3Kennedy Krieger Institute, Baltimore, MD, USA

*Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to: Vikram S. Chib, 716 North Broadway, Rm 241, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA, vchib@jhu.edu

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.

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PMCID: PMC11275777  PMID: 39071329

Updated version available: A peer-reviewed version of this article, "The Neurobiology of Cognitive Fatigue and Its Influence on Effort-Based Choice", has been published in The Journal of Neuroscience.

The complete version history of this preprint is available at bioRxiv.

Abstract

Feelings of cognitive fatigue emerge through repeated mental exertion and are ubiquitous in our daily lives. However, there is a limited understanding of the neurobiological mechanisms underlying the influence of cognitive fatigue on decisions to exert. We use functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine brain activity while participants make choices to exert effort for reward, before and after bouts of fatiguing cognitive exertion. We found that when participants became cognitively fatigued, they were more likely to choose to forgo higher levels of reward that required more effort. We describe a mechanism by which signals related to cognitive exertion in dlPFC influence effort value computations, instantiated by the insula, thereby influencing an individual’s decisions to exert while fatigued. Our results suggest that cognitive fatigue plays a critical role in decisions to exert effort and provides a mechanistic link through which information about cognitive state shapes effort-based choice.

INTRODUCTION

The workday is filled with tasks that require a great deal of cognitive effort, whether that be meeting with clients and coworkers, preparing for presentations, or simply replying to emails. As the day progresses, our engagement in these effortful tasks leads to fatigue, which impacts our choices by making us less willing to exert cognitive effort. Recent studies in cognitive neuroscience have begun to dissect the circuitry underpinning physical fatigue and its influence on effort-based decision-making1,2. While previous works have examined the effects of cognitive fatigue on task engagement and performance3,4, there is a limited understanding of how the emergence of fatigue during repeated cognitive exertion influences effort-based decision-making at the level of brain and behavior.

Experiments examining the influence of physical fatigue on effort-based decision-making have shown that fatigued individuals increase their subjective costs of physical effort, and higher rewards are needed to incentivize exertion while in a fatigued state1,2,5. Physical effort costs and effort decisions fluctuate with individuals’ momentary fatigue5,6. Neuroimaging during exertion and choice has revealed a network of brain activity that underlies effort-based choices and is impacted by physical...