ORCID

Abstract

Pavlovian biases reflect how evolutionarily hard-wired tendencies—automatic approach toward reward cues and withdrawal from threat cues—can interfere with flexible, goal-directed action. Such biases arise through three mechanisms: (a) anticipated rewards energize action while anticipated punishments suppress it (response bias), (b) agents learn differently from actions than from inactions (learning bias), and (c) reward/punishment cues themselves drive repetitive behavior, independent of outcomes (perseveration bias). The neural origin of these biases is unclear. Past evidence suggests dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and anterior insula (aIns) as part of a “reset network” that rapidly responds to salient information and might contribute to these biases. We used transcranial ultrasonic stimulation (TUS) in 29 healthy participants to interfere with neural activity in these regions and test their causal role in a within-subject, counter-balanced design across three sessions (sham, TUS-dACC, TUS-aIns). Computational modeling revealed a functional differentiation of both regions in Pavlovian biases: while TUS to either region did not affect the response bias, TUS to the aIns decreased people’s learning bias, while TUS to dACC increased participants’ perseveration bias. Although the dACC and aIns are part of the same network and often co-activate during decision-making tasks, TUS interference reveals their distinct roles: the dACC mediates cue-dependent persistence while the aIns is critical for inferring whether outcomes are self-caused.

Publication Date

2026-05-05

Publication Title

PLoS Biology

Volume

24

Issue

5

ISSN

1544-9173

Acceptance Date

2026-04-07

Deposit Date

2026-06-09

Funding

NK received internal pump-priming funds from the School of Psychology and the Brain Research Imaging Centre, University of Plymouth, in support of this study. EF received funding from a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship grant: https://www.ukri.org/opportunity/future-leaders-fellowship-round-11/, Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council: https://www.ukri.org/opportunity/bbsrc-standard-research-grant-2026-round-one-applicant-led-mode/, Neuromod+: https://neuromodplus.org/https://neuromodplus.org/, ARIA: https://aria.org.uk/ (MR/Y034368/1 to EF), a Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council grant (BB/Y001494/1 to EF), a Neuromod+ grant (EP/W035057/1 to EF), and an ARIA grant (SCNI-PR01-P15 to EF). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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