Electrophysiological underpinnings of reward processing: Are we exploiting the full potential of EEG?
Understanding how the brain processes reward is an important and complex endeavor, which has involved the use of a range of complementary neuroimaging tools, including electroencephalography (EEG). EEG has been praised for its high temporal resolution but, because the signal recorded at the scalp is...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Elsevier
2021-11-01
|
| Series: | NeuroImage |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811921007515 |
| _version_ | 1818689275446689792 |
|---|---|
| author | Garance M. Meyer Josep Marco-Pallarés Philippe Boulinguez Guillaume Sescousse |
| author_facet | Garance M. Meyer Josep Marco-Pallarés Philippe Boulinguez Guillaume Sescousse |
| author_sort | Garance M. Meyer |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Understanding how the brain processes reward is an important and complex endeavor, which has involved the use of a range of complementary neuroimaging tools, including electroencephalography (EEG). EEG has been praised for its high temporal resolution but, because the signal recorded at the scalp is a mixture of brain activities, it is often considered to have poor spatial resolution. Besides, EEG data analysis has most often relied on event-related potentials (ERPs) which cancel out non-phase locked oscillatory activity, thus limiting the functional discriminative power of EEG attainable through spectral analyses. Because these three dimensions -temporal, spatial and spectral- have been unequally leveraged in reward studies, we argue that the full potential of EEG has not been exploited. To back up our claim, we first performed a systematic survey of EEG studies assessing reward processing. Specifically, we report on the nature of the cognitive processes investigated (i.e., reward anticipation or reward outcome processing) and the methods used to collect and process the EEG data (i.e., event-related potential, time-frequency or source analyses). A total of 359 studies involving healthy subjects and the delivery of monetary rewards were surveyed. We show that reward anticipation has been overlooked (88% of studies investigated reward outcome processing, while only 24% investigated reward anticipation), and that time-frequency and source analyses (respectively reported by 19% and 12% of the studies) have not been widely adopted by the field yet, with ERPs still being the dominant methodology (92% of the studies). We argue that this focus on feedback-related ERPs provides a biased perspective on reward processing, by ignoring reward anticipation processes as well as a large part of the information contained in the EEG signal. Finally, we illustrate with selected examples how addressing these issues could benefit the field, relying on approaches combining time-frequency analyses, blind source separation and source localization. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-17T12:07:31Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-bdfbe9109b3b4e858bbc9ca2f2fb1027 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1095-9572 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-17T12:07:31Z |
| publishDate | 2021-11-01 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| record_format | Article |
| series | NeuroImage |
| spelling | doaj.art-bdfbe9109b3b4e858bbc9ca2f2fb10272022-12-21T21:49:35ZengElsevierNeuroImage1095-95722021-11-01242118478Electrophysiological underpinnings of reward processing: Are we exploiting the full potential of EEG?Garance M. Meyer0Josep Marco-Pallarés1Philippe Boulinguez2Guillaume Sescousse3Université de Lyon, F-69622, Lyon, France; Université Lyon 1, Villeurbanne, France; INSERM, U 1028, Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, Lyon, F-69000, France; CNRS, UMR 5292, Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, Lyon, F-69000, FranceDepartment of Cognition, Development and Educational Psychology, Institute of Neurosciences, University of Barcelona, Spain; Cognition and Brain Plasticity Unit, Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute, SpainUniversité de Lyon, F-69622, Lyon, France; Université Lyon 1, Villeurbanne, France; INSERM, U 1028, Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, Lyon, F-69000, France; CNRS, UMR 5292, Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, Lyon, F-69000, France; Corresponding author at: Centre de Recherche en Neurosciences de Lyon, 95 boulevard Pinel, 69500 Bron, France.Université de Lyon, F-69622, Lyon, France; Université Lyon 1, Villeurbanne, France; INSERM, U 1028, Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, Lyon, F-69000, France; CNRS, UMR 5292, Lyon Neuroscience Research Center, Lyon, F-69000, FranceUnderstanding how the brain processes reward is an important and complex endeavor, which has involved the use of a range of complementary neuroimaging tools, including electroencephalography (EEG). EEG has been praised for its high temporal resolution but, because the signal recorded at the scalp is a mixture of brain activities, it is often considered to have poor spatial resolution. Besides, EEG data analysis has most often relied on event-related potentials (ERPs) which cancel out non-phase locked oscillatory activity, thus limiting the functional discriminative power of EEG attainable through spectral analyses. Because these three dimensions -temporal, spatial and spectral- have been unequally leveraged in reward studies, we argue that the full potential of EEG has not been exploited. To back up our claim, we first performed a systematic survey of EEG studies assessing reward processing. Specifically, we report on the nature of the cognitive processes investigated (i.e., reward anticipation or reward outcome processing) and the methods used to collect and process the EEG data (i.e., event-related potential, time-frequency or source analyses). A total of 359 studies involving healthy subjects and the delivery of monetary rewards were surveyed. We show that reward anticipation has been overlooked (88% of studies investigated reward outcome processing, while only 24% investigated reward anticipation), and that time-frequency and source analyses (respectively reported by 19% and 12% of the studies) have not been widely adopted by the field yet, with ERPs still being the dominant methodology (92% of the studies). We argue that this focus on feedback-related ERPs provides a biased perspective on reward processing, by ignoring reward anticipation processes as well as a large part of the information contained in the EEG signal. Finally, we illustrate with selected examples how addressing these issues could benefit the field, relying on approaches combining time-frequency analyses, blind source separation and source localization.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811921007515RewardFeedbackElectroencephalographyOscillationsSource separation |
| spellingShingle | Garance M. Meyer Josep Marco-Pallarés Philippe Boulinguez Guillaume Sescousse Electrophysiological underpinnings of reward processing: Are we exploiting the full potential of EEG? NeuroImage Reward Feedback Electroencephalography Oscillations Source separation |
| title | Electrophysiological underpinnings of reward processing: Are we exploiting the full potential of EEG? |
| title_full | Electrophysiological underpinnings of reward processing: Are we exploiting the full potential of EEG? |
| title_fullStr | Electrophysiological underpinnings of reward processing: Are we exploiting the full potential of EEG? |
| title_full_unstemmed | Electrophysiological underpinnings of reward processing: Are we exploiting the full potential of EEG? |
| title_short | Electrophysiological underpinnings of reward processing: Are we exploiting the full potential of EEG? |
| title_sort | electrophysiological underpinnings of reward processing are we exploiting the full potential of eeg |
| topic | Reward Feedback Electroencephalography Oscillations Source separation |
| url | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811921007515 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT garancemmeyer electrophysiologicalunderpinningsofrewardprocessingareweexploitingthefullpotentialofeeg AT josepmarcopallares electrophysiologicalunderpinningsofrewardprocessingareweexploitingthefullpotentialofeeg AT philippeboulinguez electrophysiologicalunderpinningsofrewardprocessingareweexploitingthefullpotentialofeeg AT guillaumesescousse electrophysiologicalunderpinningsofrewardprocessingareweexploitingthefullpotentialofeeg |