A neural pathway controlling motivation to exert effort
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The neural mechanisms conferring reduced motivation, as observed in depressed individuals, is poorly understood. Here, we examine in rodents if reduced motivation to exert effort is controlled by transmission from the lateral habenula (LHb), a nucleus overactive in depressed-like states, to the rostromedial tegmental nucleus (RMTg), a nucleus that inhibits dopaminergic neurons. In an aversive test wherein immobility indicates loss of effort, LHb→RMTg transmission increased during transitions into immobility, driving LHb→RMTg increased immobility, and inhibiting LHb→RMTg produced the opposite effects. In an appetitive test, driving LHb→RMTg reduced the effort exerted to receive a reward, without affecting the reward's hedonic property. Notably, LHb→RMTg stimulation only affected specific aspects of these motor tasks, did not affect all motor tasks, and promoted avoidance, indicating that LHb→RMTg activity does not generally reduce movement but appears to carry a negative valence that reduces effort. These results indicate that LHb→RMTg activity controls the motivation to exert effort and may contribute to the reduced motivation in depression.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".