How the Brain and Behavior Track Feelings of Effort and Fatigue
Official title: Behavioral and Neural Representations of Subjective Effort Cost
Funded at Hugo W. Moser Res Inst Kennedy Krieger · NIH-11324029 · Data updated 2026-11-12
This project looks at how repeated physical and mental effort changes feelings of fatigue and effort-based decisions in healthy people and people with major depression.
Quick facts
| Grant type | R01 grant |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | Hugo W. Moser Res Inst Kennedy Krieger NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Baltimore, United States) |
| Project start | August 1, 2019 |
| Project end | February 28, 2029 |
| Funding year | 2026 |
| Award (this year) | $754,601 |
| NIH project number | 5R01MH119086-07 |
| Project ID | NIH-11324029 on NIH RePORTER |
Who could benefit from this research
✓Could help
Ideal participants are adults who can undergo MRI and perform short physical and cognitive exertion tasks, including healthy volunteers and adults diagnosed with major depressive disorder.
✕Less likely to help
People who cannot have an MRI, are medically unable to perform exertion tests, or are children likely would not be eligible or directly benefit from participation.
What this research studies
You will perform short physical and mental tasks that make you tired while researchers periodically ask how fatigued you feel and have you make choices about whether to expend effort. Your choices and responses will be analyzed with computer models to describe how fatigue builds and influences decision-making. You will also have functional MRI scans so researchers can link those changes to activity in specific brain regions. The work compares adults with major depressive disorder to healthy volunteers to see how fatigue and decision-making differ.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, this work could clarify why fatigue alters daily choices and point to brain targets or behavioral strategies to reduce disabling fatigue in depression and other conditions.
How similar studies have gone: Previous fMRI and computational studies have linked brain circuits to effort and fatigue, but combining repeated exertion, momentary fatigue reports, and model-based imaging in depression is a relatively new approach.
Where this research is happening
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Hugo W. Moser Res Inst Kennedy Krieger
Baltimore, United States Active
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Chib, Vikram S — Hugo W. Moser Res Inst Kennedy Krieger
- Study coordinator: Chib, Vikram S
About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page.