Browse
Submit Data
Databases
API
Help

Dataset Information

43 Views

0 Connections

0 Citations

0 Reanalyses

0 Downloads

Omics score: 0

Prefrontal cortex exhibits multidimensional dynamic encoding during decision-making.

ABSTRACT: Recent work has suggested that the prefrontal cortex (PFC) plays a key role in context-dependent perceptual decision-making. In this study, we addressed that role using a new method for identifying task-relevant dimensions of neural population activity. Specifically, we show that the PFC has a multidimensional code for context, decisions and both relevant and irrelevant sensory information. Moreover, these representations evolve in time, with an early linear accumulation phase followed by a phase with rotational dynamics. We identify the dimensions of neural activity associated with these phases and show that they do not arise from distinct populations but from a single population with broad tuning characteristics. Finally, we use model-based decoding to show that the transition from linear to rotational dynamics coincides with a plateau in decoding accuracy, revealing that rotational dynamics in the PFC preserve sensory choice information for the duration of the stimulus integration period.

SUBMITTER: Aoi MC

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7610668 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Json Xml

Publications

Prefrontal cortex exhibits multidimensional dynamic encoding during decision-making.

Aoi Mikio C MC Mante Valerio V Pillow Jonathan W JW

Nature neuroscience 20201005 11

Recent work has suggested that the prefrontal cortex (PFC) plays a key role in context-dependent perceptual decision-making. In this study, we addressed that role using a new method for identifying task-relevant dimensions of neural population activity. Specifically, we show that the PFC has a multidimensional code for context, decisions and both relevant and irrelevant sensory information. Moreover, these representations evolve in time, with an early linear accumulation phase followed by a phas ...[more]

PMID: 33020653

Similar Datasets

Encoding and decoding in parietal cortex during sensorimotor decision-making.

Project description:It has been suggested that the lateral intraparietal area (LIP) of macaques plays a fundamental role in sensorimotor decision-making. We examined the neural code in LIP at the level of individual spike trains using a statistical approach based on generalized linear models. We found that LIP responses reflected a combination of temporally overlapping task- and decision-related signals. Our model accounts for the detailed statistics of LIP spike trains and accurately predicts spike trains from task events on single trials. Moreover, we derived an optimal decoder for heterogeneous, multiplexed LIP responses that could be implemented in biologically plausible circuits. In contrast with interpretations of LIP as providing an instantaneous code for decision variables, we found that optimal decoding requires integrating LIP spikes over two distinct timescales. These analyses provide a detailed understanding of neural representations in LIP and a framework for studying the coding of multiplexed signals in higher brain areas.

| S-EPMC4176983 | biostudies-literature

Determining a role for ventromedial prefrontal cortex in encoding action-based value signals during reward-related decision making.

Project description:Considerable evidence has emerged to implicate ventromedial prefrontal cortex in encoding expectations of future reward during value-based decision making. However, the nature of the learned associations upon which such representations depend is much less clear. Here, we aimed to determine whether expected reward representations in this region could be driven by action-outcome associations, rather than being dependent on the associative value assigned to particular discriminative stimuli. Subjects were scanned with functional magnetic resonance imaging while performing 2 variants of a simple reward-related decision task. In one version, subjects made choices between 2 different physical motor responses in the absence of discriminative stimuli, whereas in the other version, subjects chose between 2 different stimuli that were randomly assigned to different responses on a trial-by-trial basis. Using an extension of a reinforcement learning algorithm, we found activity in ventromedial prefrontal cortex tracked expected future reward during the action-based task as well as during the stimulus-based task, indicating that value representations in this region can be driven by action-outcome associations. These findings suggest that ventromedial prefrontal cortex may play a role in encoding the value of chosen actions irrespective of whether those actions denote physical motor responses or more abstract decision options.

| S-EPMC2626172 | biostudies-literature

Dynamic routing of task-relevant signals for decision making in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.

Project description:Neurons in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) encode a diverse array of sensory and mnemonic signals, but little is known about how this information is dynamically routed during decision making. We analyzed the neuronal activity in the DLPFC of monkeys performing a probabilistic reversal task where information about the probability and magnitude of reward was provided by the target color and numerical cues, respectively. The location of the target of a given color was randomized across trials and therefore was not relevant for subsequent choices. DLPFC neurons encoded signals related to both task-relevant and irrelevant features, but only task-relevant mnemonic signals were encoded congruently with choice signals. Furthermore, only the task-relevant signals related to previous events were more robustly encoded following rewarded outcomes. Thus, multiple types of neural signals are flexibly routed in the DLPFC so as to favor actions that maximize reward.

| S-EPMC5452079 | biostudies-literature

Disrupting the medial prefrontal cortex alters hippocampal sequences during deliberative decision making.

Project description:Current theories of deliberative decision making suggest that deliberative decisions arise from imagined simulations that require interactions between the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus. In rodent navigation experiments, hippocampal theta sequences advance from the location of the rat ahead to the subsequent goal. To examine the role of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) on the hippocampus, we disrupted the mPFC with DREADDs (designer receptors exclusively activated by designer drugs). Using the Restaurant Row foraging task, we found that mPFC disruption resulted in decreased vicarious trial and error behavior, reduced the number of theta sequences, and impaired theta sequences in hippocampus. mPFC disruption led to larger changes in the initiation of the hippocampal theta sequences that represent the current location of the rat rather than to the later portions that represent the future outcomes. These data suggest that the mPFC likely provides an important component to the initiation of deliberative sequences and provides support for an episodic-future thinking, working memory interpretation of deliberation. NEW & NOTEWORTHY The medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and hippocampus interact during deliberative decision making. Disruption of the mPFC impaired hippocampal processes, including the local and nonlocal representations of space along each theta cycle and the initiation of hippocampal theta sequences, while sparing place cell firing characteristics and phase precession. mPFC disruption reduced the deliberative behavioral process vicarious trial and error and improved economic behaviors on this task.

| S-EPMC6620703 | biostudies-literature

Evidence accumulation for value computation in the prefrontal cortex during decision making.

Project description:A key step of decision making is to determine the value associated with each option. The evaluation process often depends on the accumulation of evidence from multiple sources, which may arrive at different times. How evidence is accumulated for value computation in the brain during decision making has not been well studied. To address this problem, we trained rhesus monkeys to perform a decision-making task in which they had to make eye movement choices between two targets, whose reward probabilities had to be determined with the combined evidence from four sequentially presented visual stimuli. We studied the encoding of the reward probabilities associated with the stimuli and the eye movements in the orbitofrontal (OFC) and the dorsolateral prefrontal (DLPFC) cortices during the decision process. We found that the OFC neurons encoded the reward probability associated with individual pieces of evidence in the stimulus domain. Importantly, the representation of the reward probability in the OFC was transient, and the OFC did not encode the reward probability associated with the combined evidence from multiple stimuli. The computation of the combined reward probabilities was observed only in the DLPFC and only in the action domain. Furthermore, the reward probability encoding in the DLPFC exhibited an asymmetric pattern of mixed selectivity that supported the computation of the stimulus-to-action transition of reward information. Our results reveal that the OFC and the DLPFC play distinct roles in the value computation during evidence accumulation.

| S-EPMC7720192 | biostudies-literature

Distinct encoding of decision confidence in human medial prefrontal cortex.

Project description:Our confidence in a choice and the evidence pertaining to a choice appear to be inseparable. However, an emerging computational consensus holds that the brain should maintain separate estimates of these quantities for adaptive behavioral control. We have devised a psychophysical task to decouple confidence in a perceptual decision from both the reliability of sensory evidence and the relation of such evidence with respect to a choice boundary. Using human fMRI, we found that an area in the medial prefrontal cortex, the perigenual anterior cingulate cortex (pgACC), tracked expected performance, an aggregate signature of decision confidence, whereas neural areas previously proposed to encode decision confidence instead tracked sensory reliability (posterior parietal cortex and ventral striatum) or boundary distance (presupplementary motor area). Supporting that information encoded by pgACC is central to a subjective sense of decision confidence, we show that pgACC activity does not simply covary with expected performance, but is also linked to within-subject and between-subject variation in explicit confidence estimates. Our study is consistent with the proposal that the brain maintains choice-dependent and choice-independent estimates of certainty, and sheds light on why dysfunctional confidence often emerges following prefrontal lesions and/or degeneration.

| S-EPMC6003322 | biostudies-literature

Reduced decision bias and more rational decision making following ventromedial prefrontal cortex damage.

Project description:Human decisions are susceptible to biases, but establishing causal roles of brain areas has proved to be difficult. Here we studied decision biases in 17 people with unilateral medial prefrontal cortex damage and a rare patient with bilateral ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) lesions. Participants learned to choose which of two options was most likely to win, and then bet money on the outcome. Thus, good performance required not only selecting the best option, but also the amount to bet. Healthy people were biased by their previous bet, as well as by the unchosen option's value. Unilateral medial prefrontal lesions reduced these biases, leading to more rational decisions. Bilateral vmPFC lesions resulted in more strategic betting, again with less bias from the previous trial, paradoxically improving performance overall. Together, the results suggest that vmPFC normally imposes contextual biases, which in healthy people may actually be suboptimal in some situations.

| S-EPMC8064028 | biostudies-literature

The role of medial prefrontal cortex in memory and decision making.

Project description:Some have claimed that the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) mediates decision making. Others suggest mPFC is selectively involved in the retrieval of remote long-term memory. Yet others suggests mPFC supports memory and consolidation on time scales ranging from seconds to days. How can all these roles be reconciled? We propose that the function of the mPFC is to learn associations between context, locations, events, and corresponding adaptive responses, particularly emotional responses. Thus, the ubiquitous involvement of mPFC in both memory and decision making may be due to the fact that almost all such tasks entail the ability to recall the best action or emotional response to specific events in a particular place and time. An interaction between multiple memory systems may explain the changing importance of mPFC to different types of memories over time. In particular, mPFC likely relies on the hippocampus to support rapid learning and memory consolidation.

| S-EPMC3562704 | biostudies-literature

The neural system of metacognition accompanying decision-making in the prefrontal cortex.

Project description:Decision-making is usually accompanied by metacognition, through which a decision maker monitors uncertainty regarding a decision and may then consequently revise the decision. These metacognitive processes can occur prior to or in the absence of feedback. However, the neural mechanisms of metacognition remain controversial. One theory proposes an independent neural system for metacognition in the prefrontal cortex (PFC); the other, that metacognitive processes coincide and overlap with the systems used for the decision-making process per se. In this study, we devised a novel "decision-redecision" paradigm to investigate the neural metacognitive processes involved in redecision as compared to the initial decision-making process. The participants underwent a perceptual decision-making task and a rule-based decision-making task during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We found that the anterior PFC, including the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and lateral frontopolar cortex (lFPC), were more extensively activated after the initial decision. The dACC activity in redecision positively scaled with decision uncertainty and correlated with individual metacognitive uncertainty monitoring abilities-commonly occurring in both tasks-indicating that the dACC was specifically involved in decision uncertainty monitoring. In contrast, the lFPC activity seen in redecision processing was scaled with decision uncertainty reduction and correlated with individual accuracy changes-positively in the rule-based decision-making task and negatively in the perceptual decision-making task. Our results show that the lFPC was specifically involved in metacognitive control of decision adjustment and was subject to different control demands of the tasks. Therefore, our findings support that a separate neural system in the PFC is essentially involved in metacognition and further, that functions of the PFC in metacognition are dissociable.

| S-EPMC5933819 | biostudies-literature

Distinct roles of rodent orbitofrontal and medial prefrontal cortex in decision making.

Project description:We investigated how different subregions of rodent prefrontal cortex contribute to value-based decision making, by comparing neural signals related to animal's choice, its outcome, and action value in orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) of rats performing a dynamic two-armed bandit task. Neural signals for upcoming action selection arose in the mPFC, including the anterior cingulate cortex, only immediately before the behavioral manifestation of animal's choice, suggesting that rodent prefrontal cortex is not involved in advanced action planning. Both OFC and mPFC conveyed signals related to the animal's past choices and their outcomes over multiple trials, but neural signals for chosen value and reward prediction error were more prevalent in the OFC. Our results suggest that rodent OFC and mPFC serve distinct roles in value-based decision making and that the OFC plays a prominent role in updating the values of outcomes expected from chosen actions.

| S-EPMC2872629 | biostudies-literature

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

OmicsDI is an Elixir interoperability service. Learn more ›

Tweets

OmicsDI Databases

PRIDE
PeptideAtlas
MassIVE
JPOST Repository
Physiome Model Repository

EGA
EVA
ENA
LINCS
PAXDB
Cell Collective

MetaboLights
Metabolomics Workbench
MetabolomeExpress
GNPS
BioModels
FAIRDOMHub

ArrayExpress
dbGaP
ExpressionAtlas
GEO
NODE

Information

Databases
Help
API
Contact us
Code on GitHub
Terms of use
Submit Data