On Translational Misalignment in Reinforcement and Motivation Research
Abstract
Despite major advances in computational psychiatry, neuroimaging, and preclinical neuroscience, progress in the development of effective treatments for motivational dysfunction has remained challenging. Here, we argue that part of this challenge arises because complex real-life motivational phenomena are progressively transformed when they move across the translational research spectrum. The aim of this brief review is to highlight three related gaps that contribute to this form of “translational misalignment”. First, experimental paradigms simplify and compress ecological human motivational experiences into tractable (sub-)constructs. Second, clinical manifestations of motivational dysfunction are heterogeneous, measured and operationalized inconsistently across research fields, and only partially align with metrics from experimental paradigms. Third, preclinical animal models rely on behavioral inference, aim for mechanistic optimization, and often use extreme and/or constrained phenotypes that may incompletely correspond to motivational dysfunction in humans. We conclude with a discussion on how more iterative and human-grounded forms of back-translation could help preserve alignment between lived motivational phenomena, laboratory measures, clinical symptoms, and preclinical models. These approaches may ultimately improve translational validity in reinforcement- and motivation-focused neuropsychopharmacology research and aide the much-needed delivery of new therapeutics.
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BibTeX
@misc{hernaus2026translational,
title = {{On Translational Misalignment in Reinforcement and Motivation Research}},
author = {Dennis Hernaus and Geor Bakker and Gerard R. Dawson and Oliver Grimm and Catherine Harmer and Mitul Mehta and Jonathan Roiser and James Waltz and Nic van der Wee and Elizabeth Tunbridge},
howpublished = {PsyArXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.31234/osf.io/n6hd7_v1},
url = {https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/n6hd7_v1/},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - On Translational Misalignment in Reinforcement and Motivation Research
AU - Dennis Hernaus
AU - Geor Bakker
AU - Gerard R. Dawson
AU - Oliver Grimm
AU - Catherine Harmer
AU - Mitul Mehta
AU - Jonathan Roiser
AU - James Waltz
AU - Nic van der Wee
AU - Elizabeth Tunbridge
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/08
PB - PsyArXiv
DO - 10.31234/osf.io/n6hd7_v1
UR - https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/n6hd7_v1/
AB - Despite major advances in computational psychiatry, neuroimaging, and preclinical neuroscience, progress in the development of effective treatments for motivational dysfunction has remained challenging. Here, we argue that part of this challenge arises because complex real-life motivational phenomena are progressively transformed when they move across the translational research spectrum. The aim of this brief review is to highlight three related gaps that contribute to this form of “translational misalignment”. First, experimental paradigms simplify and compress ecological human motivational experiences into tractable (sub-)constructs. Second, clinical manifestations of motivational dysfunction are heterogeneous, measured and operationalized inconsistently across research fields, and only partially align with metrics from experimental paradigms. Third, preclinical animal models rely on behavioral inference, aim for mechanistic optimization, and often use extreme and/or constrained phenotypes that may incompletely correspond to motivational dysfunction in humans. We conclude with a discussion on how more iterative and human-grounded forms of back-translation could help preserve alignment between lived motivational phenomena, laboratory measures, clinical symptoms, and preclinical models. These approaches may ultimately improve translational validity in reinforcement- and motivation-focused neuropsychopharmacology research and aide the much-needed delivery of new therapeutics.
ER -