Neural Correlates of Cognitive Fatigue: Cortico-Striatal Circuitry and Effort–Reward Imbalance

Recently, there has been renewed interest in the study of cognitive fatigue. It is known that fatigue is one of the most disabling symptoms in numerous neurological populations, including stroke, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, and traumatic brain injury. Behavioral studies of cognitive fatigue are hampered by lack of correlation of self-report measures with objective performance. Neuroimaging studies provide new insight about cognitive fatigue and its neural correlates.Impairment within the cortico-striatal network, involved in effort–reward calculation, has been suggested to be critically related to fatigue. The current review surveys the recent neuroimaging literature, and suggests promising avenues for future research.