ArticlePLoS biology2017
Neurocomputational mechanisms underlying subjective valuation of effort costs.
Article in PLoS biology, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 165 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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The trial behind it
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Who cites it
165 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- The neural basis of cost-benefit trade-offs in effort investment: a quantitative activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026Pooled it
- How to Tackle Mental Fatigue: A Systematic Review of Potential Countermeasures and Their Underlying Mechanisms.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2022Pooled it
- Dopamine D2-receptor blockade in humans disrupts the effect of effort on learning.PLoS biology · 2026Trial
- Noninvasive Brain Stimulation over the Frontopolar Cortex Promotes Willingness to Exert Cognitive Effort in a Foraging-Like Sequential Choice Task.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Trial
- Elevated muscle pain induced by a hypertonic saline injection reduces power output independent of physiological changes during fixed perceived effort cycling.Journal of applied physiology (Bethesda, Md. : 1985) · 2024Trial
- Trial
- Using functional connectivity changes associated with cognitive fatigue to delineate a fatigue network.Scientific reports · 2020Trial
- Inducing illusory control ensures persistence when rewards fade and when others outperform us.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2020Trial
- Catecholaminergic modulation of the cost of cognitive control in healthy older adults.PloS one · 2020Trial
- Fatigue Symptoms Influence Effort-Based Decision-Making in Major Depressive Disorder.Biological psychiatry global open science · 2026Article
- Increased exertion variability is linked to disruptions in effort assessment in multiple sclerosis.Multiple sclerosis (Houndmills, Basingstoke, England) · 2026Article
- Neural and computational mechanisms of effort under the pressure of a deadline.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Obesity is associated with greater variability of reward signals in the nucleus accumbens.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Neurochemical drivers of effort: The roles of dopamine and beyond in physical and cognitive exertion.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2026Review
- Examining effects of effort and reward magnitude on effort-cost decision-making in people with major depressive disorder.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- Arousal shapes motivation: an integrative framework for understanding motivational deficits.Translational psychiatry · 2026Review
- Physical and cognitive contributions to fatigue perception: The interplay between local muscle fatigue and sensory prediction error.iScience · 2026Article
- Contributions of the basolateral amygdala and nucleus accumbens to sustaining not just initiating cognitive effort.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Environmental uncertainty shapes human effort learning.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Shared and distinct features of common effort-based decision-making paradigms and their relation to brain structure and neuropsychiatric conditions: An integrated narrative review.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026Review
105 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
In everyday life, we have to decide whether it is worth exerting effort to obtain rewards. Effort can be experienced in different domains, with some tasks requiring significant cognitive demand and others being more physically effortful. The motivation to exert effort for reward is highly subjective and varies considerably across the different domains of behaviour. However, very little is known about the computational or neural basis of how different effort costs are subjectively weighed against rewards. Is there a common, domain-general system of brain areas that evaluates all costs and benefits? Here, we used computational modelling and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the mechanisms underlying value processing in both the cognitive and physical domains. Participants were trained on two novel tasks that parametrically varied either cognitive or physical effort. During fMRI, participants indicated their preferences between a fixed low-effort/low-reward option and a variable higher-effort/higher-reward offer for each effort domain. Critically, reward devaluation by both cognitive and physical effort was subserved by a common network of areas, including the dorsomedial and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the intraparietal sulcus, and the anterior insula. Activity within these domain-general areas also covaried negatively with reward and positively with effort, suggesting an integration of these parameters within these areas. Additionally, the amygdala appeared to play a unique, domain-specific role in processing the value of rewards associated with cognitive effort. These results are the first to reveal the neurocomputational mechanisms underlying subjective cost-benefit valuation across different domains of effort and provide insight into the multidimensional nature of motivation.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.