Metacognition in motivation and fatigue - neural and computational mechanisms.

Deficits of motivation and experience of chronic fatigue can deeply impair quality of life. Current approaches to the study of motivation in humans propose that it relies on evaluations of potential benefits versus effort costs with the weighting of effort increasing as fatigue builds up. Most mental processes in humans are subject to ongoing monitoring and evaluation (metacognition) that influence judgment and decision-making, and motivational valuations are unlikely to be an exception. However, there remains a large scope for addressing how motivation and metacognition interact on computational and neurobiological level.
This project aims to address the role of metacognitive processes in motivation to exert effort and the development of fatigue. The project will address the question of how the evaluation of skill and performance enters the cognitive computations underlying effort-based decision making. Using functional neuroimaging techniques (fMRI and MEG) we will attempt to establish neural mechanisms behind this relationship and potential common pathways involved in valuation of effort, confidence judgments, and experience of fatigue. The research programme will also tackle the relationship between deficits of motivation which are common in various psychopathologies and altered metacognitive judgments also observed to correlate with psychiatric symptoms.