scholarly journals Subpopulations of neurons in lOFC encode previous and current rewards at time of choice

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Hocker ◽  
Carlos D Brody ◽  
Cristina Savin ◽  
Christine M Constantinople

Studies of neural dynamics in lateral orbitofrontal cortex (lOFC) have shown that subsets of neurons that encode distinct aspects of behavior, such as value, may project to common downstream targets. However, it is unclear whether reward history, which may subserve lOFC's well-documented role in learning, is represented by functional subpopulations in lOFC. We analyzed neural recordings from rats performing a value-based decision-making task, in which we previously documented trial-by-trial learning that required lOFC. We found five distinct clusters of lOFC neurons, either based on clustering of their trial-averaged peristimulus time histograms (PSTHs), or a feature space defined by their average conditional firing rates aligned to different task variables. We observed weak encoding of reward attributes, but stronger encoding of reward history, the animal's left or right choice, and reward receipt across all clusters. Only one cluster, however, encoded the animal's reward history at the time shortly preceding the choice, suggesting a possible role in integrating previous and current trial outcomes at the time of choice.

2005 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 533-551
Author(s):  
André Lecours

The formulation of a policy that will satisfy several values and interests more or less compatible is a classic problem of political decision making. This phenomenon by which there can be, in a foreign policy issue for example, several divergent values and interests was named value-complexity by Alexander George. When facing a value complexity problem, a decision maker must choose some values and some interests over others. The choice he makes will not necessarily be the one made by other decision makers. This can result in a serious impediment to the decision making process. The American foreign policy towards the Middle East faced, for the major part of the Cold War era, a value-complexity problem because it looked to reconcile four hard-to reconcile values and interests. The Reagan government was confronted rather acutely with this problem in the making of its Iranian policies. The administration was split in at least two factions over Iran : one who thought primarily of containing the Soviet Union in the Middle East region and the other for whom the political stability of moderate regimes threatened by revolutionnary Iran should be the most important priority. The existence of these factions, consequence of value-complexity, produced the making and the implementation of two distinct Iranian policies.


2014 ◽  
Vol 369 (1641) ◽  
pp. 20130211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Randolph Blake ◽  
Jan Brascamp ◽  
David J. Heeger

This essay critically examines the extent to which binocular rivalry can provide important clues about the neural correlates of conscious visual perception. Our ideas are presented within the framework of four questions about the use of rivalry for this purpose: (i) what constitutes an adequate comparison condition for gauging rivalry's impact on awareness, (ii) how can one distinguish abolished awareness from inattention, (iii) when one obtains unequivocal evidence for a causal link between a fluctuating measure of neural activity and fluctuating perceptual states during rivalry, will it generalize to other stimulus conditions and perceptual phenomena and (iv) does such evidence necessarily indicate that this neural activity constitutes a neural correlate of consciousness? While arriving at sceptical answers to these four questions, the essay nonetheless offers some ideas about how a more nuanced utilization of binocular rivalry may still provide fundamental insights about neural dynamics, and glimpses of at least some of the ingredients comprising neural correlates of consciousness, including those involved in perceptual decision-making.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron Tung

Abstract Values are what stakeholders regard to be important to decisions (Kruglanski & Higgins 2007). How stakeholder prioritize, rank, balance, and trade-off values can have significant influence on their reasoning and evaluation of decommissioning outcomes and decisions. Stakeholder values can vary depending on various factors including religious beliefs, personal interests, and past experiences (Lechner et al., 2017). Value-focused thinking is a decision science theory developed by Keeney (1992) which builds upon the concept of varying stakeholder values. Keeney (1992) argues that the best decision is one that best reflects the actual values of stakeholders. which suggests that the acceptability of decommissioning decisions (full removal, partial removal, leave in-situ, rigs-to-reefs, etc.) by stakeholders will vary depending on the values of stakeholder in that particular context. This paper explores the idea of value-focused thinking and derive implications for decommissioning decision-making. Overall, the research finding suggests that rather than basing a decommissioning decision solely on scientific evidence, there is also a need for the decommissioning decisions to be able to reflect the actual values of stakeholders in that particular context. The criteria and weightage of the adopted multi-criteria decision analysis tool, for example, should accurately represent the actual values of stakeholders, so as to enable the tool to produce outcomes and decisions that has a higher probability of stakeholder acceptance.


Open Biology ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (12) ◽  
pp. 160229 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Axel Gorostiza ◽  
Julien Colomb ◽  
Björn Brembs

Like a moth into the flame—phototaxis is an iconic example for innate preferences. Such preferences probably reflect evolutionary adaptations to predictable situations and have traditionally been conceptualized as hard-wired stimulus–response links. Perhaps for that reason, the century-old discovery of flexibility in Drosophila phototaxis has received little attention. Here, we report that across several different behavioural tests, light/dark preference tested in walking is dependent on various aspects of flight. If we temporarily compromise flying ability, walking photopreference reverses concomitantly. Neuronal activity in circuits expressing dopamine and octopamine, respectively, plays a differential role in photopreference, suggesting a potential involvement of these biogenic amines in this case of behavioural flexibility. We conclude that flies monitor their ability to fly, and that flying ability exerts a fundamental effect on action selection in Drosophila . This work suggests that even behaviours which appear simple and hard-wired comprise a value-driven decision-making stage, negotiating the external situation with the animal's internal state, before an action is selected.


Author(s):  
Susanne Koot ◽  
Magdalini Koukou ◽  
Annemarie Baars ◽  
Peter Hesseling ◽  
José van ’t Klooster ◽  
...  

CAUCHY ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Venny Riana Riana Agustin ◽  
Wahyu Henky Irawan

Tsukamoto method is one method of fuzzy inference system on fuzzy logic for decision making. Steps of the decision making in this method, namely fuzzyfication (process changing the input into kabur), the establishment of fuzzy rules, fuzzy logic analysis, defuzzyfication (affirmation), as well as the conclusion and interpretation of the results. The results from this research are steps of the decision making in Tsukamoto method, namely fuzzyfication (process changing the input into kabur), the establishment of fuzzy rules by the general form IF a is A THEN B is B, fuzzy logic analysis to get alpha in every rule, defuzzyfication (affirmation) by weighted average method, as well as the conclusion and interpretation of the results. On customers at the case, in value of 16 the quality of services, the value of 17 the quality of goods, and value of 16 a price, a value of the results is 45,29063 and the level is low satisfaction


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bhargav Teja Nallapu ◽  
Frédéric Alexandre

AbstractIn the context of flexible and adaptive animal behavior, the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is found to be one of the crucial regions in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) influencing the downstream processes of decision-making and learning in the sub-cortical regions. Although OFC has been implicated to be important in a variety of related behavioral processes, the exact mechanisms are unclear, through which the OFC encodes or processes information related to decision-making and learning. Here, we propose a systems-level view of the OFC, positioning it at the nexus of sub-cortical systems and other prefrontal regions. Particularly we focus on one of the most recent implications of neuroscientific evidences regarding the OFC - possible functional dissociation between two of its sub-regions : lateral and medial. We present a system-level computational model of decision-making and learning involving the two sub-regions taking into account their individual roles as commonly implicated in neuroscientific studies. We emphasize on the role of the interactions between the sub-regions within the OFC as well as the role of other sub-cortical structures which form a network with them. We leverage well-known computational architecture of thalamo-cortical basal ganglia loops, accounting for recent experimental findings on monkeys with lateral and medial OFC lesions, performing a 3-arm bandit task. First we replicate the seemingly dissociate effects of lesions to lateral and medial OFC during decision-making as a function of value-difference of the presented options. Further we demonstrate and argue that such an effect is not necessarily due to the dissociate roles of both the subregions, but rather a result of complex temporal dynamics between the interacting networks in which they are involved.Author summaryWe first highlight the role of the Orbitofrontal Cortex (OFC) in value-based decision making and goal-directed behavior in primates. We establish the position of OFC at the intersection of cortical mechanisms and thalamo-basal ganglial circuits. In order to understand possible mechanisms through which the OFC exerts emotional control over behavior, among several other possibilities, we consider the case of dissociate roles of two of its topographical subregions - lateral and medial parts of OFC. We gather predominant roles of each of these sub-regions as suggested by numerous experimental evidences in the form of a system-level computational model that is based on existing neuronal architectures. We argue that besides possible dissociation, there could be possible interaction of these sub-regions within themselves and through other sub-cortical structures, in distinct mechanisms of choice and learning. The computational framework described accounts for experimental data and can be extended to more comprehensive detail of representations required to understand the processes of decision-making, learning and the role of OFC and subsequently the regions of prefrontal cortex in general.


eLife ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean E Cavanagh ◽  
Joni D Wallis ◽  
Steven W Kennerley ◽  
Laurence T Hunt

Correlates of value are routinely observed in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) during reward-guided decision making. In previous work (Hunt et al., 2015), we argued that PFC correlates of chosen value are a consequence of varying rates of a dynamical evidence accumulation process. Yet within PFC, there is substantial variability in chosen value correlates across individual neurons. Here we show that this variability is explained by neurons having different temporal receptive fields of integration, indexed by examining neuronal spike rate autocorrelation structure whilst at rest. We find that neurons with protracted resting temporal receptive fields exhibit stronger chosen value correlates during choice. Within orbitofrontal cortex, these neurons also sustain coding of chosen value from choice through the delivery of reward, providing a potential neural mechanism for maintaining predictions and updating stored values during learning. These findings reveal that within PFC, variability in temporal specialisation across neurons predicts involvement in specific decision-making computations.


2014 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 298-324
Author(s):  
Roger Chartier

Summary In the last analysis, the firmest and deepest foundation of management rights is the need for an efficient coordination of multifarious activities and often divergent interests, with an aim to achieving the basic purpose of the business concern. Efficiency, however, is essentially a value whose définitions are all the more numerous and varied as science, in its present applications to industry, cannot lay claim to absolute certainty and accuracy. And even if it could, this would not alter in any way the political nature of decision-making. Such considerations lead to a re-examination of the notions of collective bargaining and joint management, as well as they induce new thinking on the specific function of management, which reaches beyond decision-making into the realm of coordination of means, activities, interests, and bargains.


2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-98
Author(s):  
Agung Budi Broto ◽  
Dul Azis Mei Maulana

Many parties are involved in a construction project, so in deciding a method of implementing the box girder erection many criteria are taken into consideration. Consequently, decision making is not easy for decision makers. A simple, frequently-used, and popular method for decision making is Fuzzy-Analytical Hierarchy Process (F-AHP) which is designed to overcome the problem of multi criteria decision making (MCDM) in the subjective assessment process. This study aims to obtain the correct method of implementing the box girder erection to be used. Based on previous research, the criteria for determining box girder erection method are the criteria for job risk, work quality, implementation time, implementation process, work safety, and work costs. The alternatives compared are the tandem crane method and the launching gantry method. The data in this study were collected through questionnaires distributed to the expert parties involved in Jakarta - Cikampek II Elevated Toll Road Project. F-AHP analysis is based on the weighting  of quantitative criteria as a result of normalized calculations and qualitative criteria from the results of the respondents questionnaires which were then made pairwise comparisons assisted by Microsoft Excel software. The results of the analysis show that the occupational safety criteria are the most influential criteria with a weight of 0.454, then followed by job risk criteria (0.169), implementation time (0.119), work quality (0.114), implementation process (0.084), and work costs (0.061). The most appropriate method used in the work of the box girder erection at Jakarta - Cikampek II Elevated Toll Road Project is a launching gantry method with a value of 0.597, while the tandem crane method has a value of 0.403.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document