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Dissociation between mental fatigue and motivational state during prolonged mental activity

Mental fatigue (MF) is commonly observed following prolonged cognitive activity and can have major repercussions on the daily life of patients as well as healthy individuals. Despite its important impact, the cognitive processes involved in MF remain largely unknown. An influential hypothesis states...

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Autores principales: Gergelyfi, Mónika, Jacob, Benvenuto, Olivier, Etienne, Zénon, Alexandre
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4499755/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26217203
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2015.00176
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author Gergelyfi, Mónika
Jacob, Benvenuto
Olivier, Etienne
Zénon, Alexandre
author_facet Gergelyfi, Mónika
Jacob, Benvenuto
Olivier, Etienne
Zénon, Alexandre
author_sort Gergelyfi, Mónika
collection PubMed
description Mental fatigue (MF) is commonly observed following prolonged cognitive activity and can have major repercussions on the daily life of patients as well as healthy individuals. Despite its important impact, the cognitive processes involved in MF remain largely unknown. An influential hypothesis states that MF does not arise from a disruption of overused neural processes but, rather, is caused by a progressive decrease in motivation-related task engagement. Here, to test this hypothesis, we measured various neural, autonomic, psychometric and behavioral signatures of MF and motivation (EEG, ECG, pupil size, eye blinks, Skin conductance responses (SCRs), questionnaires and performance in a working memory (WM) task) in healthy volunteers, while MF was induced by Sudoku tasks performed for 120 min. Moreover extrinsic motivation was manipulated by using different levels of monetary reward. We found that, during the course of the experiment, the participants’ subjective feeling of fatigue increased and their performance worsened while their blink rate and heart rate variability (HRV) increased. Conversely, reward-induced EEG, pupillometric and skin conductance signal changes, regarded as indicators of task engagement, remained constant during the experiment, and failed to correlate with the indices of MF. In addition, MF did not affect a simple reaction time task, despite the strong influence of extrinsic motivation on this task. Finally, alterations of the motivational state through monetary incentives failed to compensate the effects of MF. These findings indicate that MF in healthy subjects is not caused by an alteration of task engagement but is likely to be the consequence of a decrease in the efficiency, or availability, of cognitive resources.
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spelling pubmed-44997552015-07-27 Dissociation between mental fatigue and motivational state during prolonged mental activity Gergelyfi, Mónika Jacob, Benvenuto Olivier, Etienne Zénon, Alexandre Front Behav Neurosci Neuroscience Mental fatigue (MF) is commonly observed following prolonged cognitive activity and can have major repercussions on the daily life of patients as well as healthy individuals. Despite its important impact, the cognitive processes involved in MF remain largely unknown. An influential hypothesis states that MF does not arise from a disruption of overused neural processes but, rather, is caused by a progressive decrease in motivation-related task engagement. Here, to test this hypothesis, we measured various neural, autonomic, psychometric and behavioral signatures of MF and motivation (EEG, ECG, pupil size, eye blinks, Skin conductance responses (SCRs), questionnaires and performance in a working memory (WM) task) in healthy volunteers, while MF was induced by Sudoku tasks performed for 120 min. Moreover extrinsic motivation was manipulated by using different levels of monetary reward. We found that, during the course of the experiment, the participants’ subjective feeling of fatigue increased and their performance worsened while their blink rate and heart rate variability (HRV) increased. Conversely, reward-induced EEG, pupillometric and skin conductance signal changes, regarded as indicators of task engagement, remained constant during the experiment, and failed to correlate with the indices of MF. In addition, MF did not affect a simple reaction time task, despite the strong influence of extrinsic motivation on this task. Finally, alterations of the motivational state through monetary incentives failed to compensate the effects of MF. These findings indicate that MF in healthy subjects is not caused by an alteration of task engagement but is likely to be the consequence of a decrease in the efficiency, or availability, of cognitive resources. Frontiers Media S.A. 2015-07-13 /pmc/articles/PMC4499755/ /pubmed/26217203 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2015.00176 Text en Copyright © 2015 Gergelyfi, Jacob, Olivier and Zénon. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution and reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Gergelyfi, Mónika
Jacob, Benvenuto
Olivier, Etienne
Zénon, Alexandre
Dissociation between mental fatigue and motivational state during prolonged mental activity
title Dissociation between mental fatigue and motivational state during prolonged mental activity
title_full Dissociation between mental fatigue and motivational state during prolonged mental activity
title_fullStr Dissociation between mental fatigue and motivational state during prolonged mental activity
title_full_unstemmed Dissociation between mental fatigue and motivational state during prolonged mental activity
title_short Dissociation between mental fatigue and motivational state during prolonged mental activity
title_sort dissociation between mental fatigue and motivational state during prolonged mental activity
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4499755/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26217203
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2015.00176
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