人类杏仁核中的速率和噪声驱动了厌恶学习的探索，这一成果由魏茨曼科学研究所Rony Paz研究组经过不懈努力而取得。相关论文于2025年8月27日发表于国际顶尖学术期刊《自然》杂志上。

重要的是，当试图避免负面结果时，探索对于生存或幸福至关重要，但小组不知道驱动探索的单神经元机制是否在积极和消极环境中共享。

在这里，课题组研究人员研究了人类参与者在进行混合损失和获得试验的概率学习任务时的探索动态，同时记录了单个神经元的活动。该课题组人员发现杏仁核和颞叶皮层的神经元在决定探索损失和获得之前调节它们的活动。

此外，研究团队发现人类在试图避免损失时表现出更多的探索，而杏仁核神经元中噪音水平的增加有助于这种行为。总的来说，研究小组报告人类的探索是由两个不同的神经机制驱动的，一个与价格无关的速率信号和一个与价格相关的全局噪声信号。研究结果表明，在情绪障碍中观察到的杏仁核活动增加与更高的探索率之间存在联系，这是适应不良甚至病理行为的基础。

研究人员表示，为了应对不确定的环境，动物们会在利用现有资源和寻找新的资源之间取得平衡。这种探索-利用困境已经在涉及积极结果的范例中得到了广泛的研究，并且已经在额叶皮层和皮层下结构，包括杏仁核中确定了神经相关性。

附：英文原文

Title: Rate and noise in human amygdala drive increased exploration in aversive learning

Author: Reitich-Stolero, Tamar, Aberg, Kristoffer C., Halperin, Dean, Ariel, Carmel, Morris, Genela, Goldstein, Lilach, Fahoum, Firas, Strauss, Ido, Paz, Rony

Issue&Volume: 2025-08-27

Abstract: To cope in uncertain environments, animals must balance their actions between using current resources and searching for new ones1. This exploration–exploitation dilemma has been studied extensively in paradigms involving positive outcomes, and neural correlates have been identified in frontal cortices and subcortical structures2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11, including the amygdala12. Importantly, exploration is just as essential for survival or well-being when trying to avoid negative outcomes, yet we do not know whether the single-neuron mechanisms that drive exploration are shared across positive and negative environments. Here we examined the dynamics of exploration when human participants engaged in a probabilistic learning task with intermixed loss and gain trials, while simultaneously recording single-neuron activity. We show that neurons of the amygdala and temporal cortex modulate their activity before a decision to explore in both loss and gain. Moreover, we find that humans exhibit more exploration when trying to avoid losses, and that an increase in the levels of noise in amygdala neurons contributes to this behaviour. Overall, we report that human exploration is driven by two distinct neural mechanisms, a valence-independent rate signal and a valence-dependent global noise signal. The results suggest a link between the heightened amygdala activity observed in mood disorders13,14 and higher exploration rates15,16,17 that underlie maladaptive and even pathological behaviours.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09466-1

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09466-1