# Arbitration between habitual and goal-directed behavior in obsessive-compulsive disorder: circuit dynamics and effects of noninvasive neurostimulation

> **NIH NIH K23** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES · 2020 · $202,824

## Abstract

Abstract:
Dysfunctional decision-making may be a prominent mechanism underlying maladaptive behavior in multiple
psychiatric disorders, including obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Debilitating compulsivity and avoidance
in OCD are believed to be a direct result of flawed decision-processing. A better understanding of the brain
mechanisms of abnormal decision-making in OCD is essential for the development of more effective treatment
options. This mentored patient-oriented career development project plans to address this underexplored area.
By providing the necessary mentorship and support and building upon the candidate’s solid skillset in basic
and clinical neuroscience, the primary goal of this K23 project is to establish the candidate’s career as an
independent clinician-scientist with expertise in clinical decision neuroscience. The candidate will benefit from
the clinical and academic environments of UCLA and Caltech as well as from a mentorship team with a
complementary expertise and exceptional scientific and mentoring records to fill gaps in his knowledge and
skills in 3 areas: 1) cognitive neuroscience of decision-making; 2) clinical neuroscience task-based functional
magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) methodology; and 3) noninvasive neurostimulation methodology.
Integrated with the above-mentioned training goals, the research project will examine neurobehavioral
characteristics of decision-making in OCD. [People utilize two behavioral strategies, goal-directed (GD) and
habitual (HB) when engaging in value-based decision-making that involves rewarding or punishing outcomes.
Furthermore, an arbitration mechanism has been proposed recently that controls the balance between those
two strategies in healthy participants. Arbitration regions (the frontopolar and inferolateral prefrontal cortex
(ilPFC)) regulate the goal-directed/habitual decision-making balance by selectively downregulating the activity
of the habitual regions (putamen and supplementary motor area). In OCD, an imbalance exists between GD
and HB action selection in favor of HB action selection. This project aims to explore the neurobehavioral
characteristics of this arbitration mechanism and its relationship with behaviors and clinical phenotypes in OCD
by applying cognitive neuroscience, clinical task-based fMRI and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS)
approaches. Adults with OCD and healthy control participants will perform two tasks while being scanned, and
when they receive inhibitory, excitatory, and sham tDCS over the left ilPFC outside of the scanner: I) a
decision-making task in which GD and HB strategies compete to control action selection and II) a clinically
relevant symptom provocation-avoidance task in which avoidance decisions will be simulated. The project’s
research aims are to 1) explore the GD, HB, and arbitration regions’ neural activity and arbitration-habitual
circuit connectivity in OCD; 2) examine the association between measures of behavioral ...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10012942
- **Project number:** 5K23MH116117-03
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES
- **Principal Investigator:** Reza Tadayon-Nejad
- **Activity code:** K23 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $202,824
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-09-24 → 2023-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10012942

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10012942, Arbitration between habitual and goal-directed behavior in obsessive-compulsive disorder: circuit dynamics and effects of noninvasive neurostimulation (5K23MH116117-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-06-10 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10012942. Licensed CC0.

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