Instrumental responding for rewards is associated with enhanced neuronal response in subcortical reward systems.

The response of human reward systems to different reinforcers, including food, drugs and money, has been investigated in a number of recent functional neuroimaging studies. They have varied, however, in terms of whether or not a behavioural response was required to obtain rewards. The aim of the present study was to determine whether neuronal responses to financial reward are significantly modulated by the requirement to make a behavioural response.

Differential response patterns in the striatum and orbitofrontal cortex to financial reward in humans: a parametric functional magnetic resonance imaging study.

Responses to monetary reward in humans have been assessed in a number of recent functional imaging studies, and it is clear that the neuronal substrates of financial reinforcement overlap extensively with regions responding to primary reinforcers, such as food. Money has the practical advantage of being an objectively quantifiable reinforcer. In this study, we exploit this advantage using a parametric functional magnetic resonance imaging design to look at the patterns of responding to systematically varying reward values.