# Causal mechanisms of habitual rule selection

> **NIH NIH F32** · UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY · 2021 · $66,390

## Abstract

Project Summary
The flexible application of rules according to context is a critical component of healthy cognition. For example,
most people can apply different recycling rules in different cities. Inflexibility in rule selection is a salient feature
of a number neurological disorders impacting mental health, including obsessive compulsive disorder,
depression and drug abuse. Clinicians and scientists lack a clear characterization of the mechanistic factors that
underlie the development of maladaptive behavioral inflexibility.
 I introduce the term rule habit to describe inflexibility in rule selection. Habits have two key consequences:
they improve performance of the habitized action, and they impair performance of alternatives. Habits allow you
to drive on a familiar route without paying attention, while interfering with your ability to make detours if your
plans change. Similarly, a rule habit has two consequences in our task: 1) Facilitated execution of the habitized
rule and 2) impaired execution of the alternative rule. This proposal uses converging causal neuroimaging and
transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) tools to target mechanisms thought to contribute to rule habits.
 Both Aims use a task in which subjects are cued to apply one of two possible rules to a perceptual
stimulus. Aim 1 tests whether reward reinforcement of a neural network representing a rule is sufficient to create
a rule habit. I will use established methods to define networks representing each rule in prefrontal cortex. I will
use real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging (rtfMRI) to trigger reward delivery during periods of
elevated activation in one of the two rule networks. I predict that performance of the targeted rule will improve
while performance of the non-targeted rule will be impaired.
 Aim 2 tests whether increasing synaptic plasticity in the inferior frontal sulcus (IFS), which represents
rules, is sufficient to enhance the acquisition of a rule habit. I will use noninvasive neurostimulation, intermittent
theta-burst TMS (tbTMS), to transiently reduce the threshold for synaptic plasticity in the targeted region of
cortex. Subjects will receive tbTMS to either IFS or somatosensory cortex (S1), a control region. After treatment
with tbTMS, subjects will undergo behavioral training on one rule. I predict that the training will create a rule habit
for both the IFS and S1 groups, but that tbTMS over IFS will cause a stronger rule habit.
 The proposed techniques are innovative strategies for addressing how rule habits emerge as well as
invaluable fellowship training goals. The Sponsor’s lab and UC Berkeley have abundant support and expertise
for acquiring this training. The application of non-invasive neurotriggering and neurostimulation techniques will
allow directional delineation of neural mechanisms of rule habits, unachievable with common correlational (i.e.,
neuroimaging) techniques alone. The proposed studies lay the foundation for future work th...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10113362
- **Project number:** 5F32MH119796-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY
- **Principal Investigator:** Ian Connors Ballard
- **Activity code:** F32 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $66,390
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2020-01-23 → 2023-01-22

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10113362

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10113362, Causal mechanisms of habitual rule selection (5F32MH119796-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10113362. Licensed CC0.

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