Interoceptive Contributions to Motivational and Affective Modulators of Memory Formation

Biological drives such as hunger, thirst, and sexual reproduction are potent motivators of behavior. Extrinsic rewards in the environment (i.e. food, drink, money) are also important behavioral and cognitive motivators. In addition to the relevance of an extrinsic reward in meeting the needs of biological drives, an individual’s sensitivity to the physiological state of their body (interoceptive awareness) would also be expected to mediate motivation for these extrinsic primary rewards (i.e. food, drink). Importantly, a better characterization of the predicted behavioral and neural interactions between interoception, motivation, and memory systems can highlight novel targets for interventions to facilitate motivation and memory for adaptive behaviors and/or impede motivation and memory for maladaptive behaviors (i.e. addiction, relapse, overeating).

The present dissertation examines how individual differences in interoceptive awareness may modulate motivated memory formation via motivational and affective mechanisms. Specifically, interoceptive accuracy is associated with increased motivation for relevant primary rewards and enhanced encoding for these rewards. However, anxiety, negatively predicted by interoceptive accuracy, negatively predicts memory the next day. Furthermore, memory for relevant primary rewards was negatively predicted by insula-parahippocampal and ventral tegmental area-hippocampal background connectivity.