Predicting Motivation in Humans: Lactate Levels and dmPFC/dACC Activity in Effort-Based Decision-Making

Description: Participants performed four effort-based decision-making fMRI blocks, choosing between effort levels for potential monetary rewards or losses. Each block was dedicated to a single effort type: physical (squeezing a handgrip for varying durations) or mental (2-back task). Each block comprised 54 trials, where subjects selected between a fixed low incentive/low effort option and a variable high incentive/high effort option. Following their choice, subjects always exerted the selected effort to gain the corresponding reward or to avoid doubling the loss indicating on screen. This database includes the maps obtained for the three main group-level contrasts at the time of decision (positive t.test against zero across individuals): effort level of the chosen option, subjective value of the chosen option and deliberation time (choice reaction time) across the physical and mental effort tasks. We also include the conjunction between physical and mental effort for the effort level of the chosen option.