scholarly journals A corticothalamic circuit trades off speed for safety during decision-making under motivational conflict

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eun A Choi ◽  
Medina Husic ◽  
E. Zayra Millan ◽  
Philip Jean Richard dit Bressel ◽  
Gavan McNally
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Calcium Imaging ◽  
Activity Increase ◽  
Cortical Input ◽  
Prefrontal Cortical ◽  
Competing Demands ◽  
Brain Circuit ◽  
Paraventricular Thalamus ◽  
Decision Speed ◽  
Motivational Conflict

Decisions to act while pursuing goals in the presence of danger must be made quickly but safely. Premature decisions risk injury or death whereas postponing decisions risk goal loss. Here we show how mice resolve these competing demands. Using microstructural behavioral analyses, we identified the spatiotemporal dynamics of approach-avoidance decisions under motivational conflict. Then we used cognitive modelling to show that these dynamics reflect the speeded decision-making mechanisms used by humans and non-human primates, with mice trading off decision speed for safety of choice when danger loomed. Using calcium imaging and functional circuit analyses, we show that this speed-safety trade off occurs because increases in paraventricular thalamus (PVT) activity increase decision caution, thereby increasing approach-avoid decision times in the presence of danger. Our findings demonstrate that a discrete brain circuit involving the PVT and its prefrontal cortical input dynamically adjusts decision caution during motivational conflict, trading off decision speed for decision safety when danger is close. They identify the corticothalamic pathway as central to cognitive control during decision-making under conflict.

scholarly journals 'To do or not to do'? The neurobiology of decision-making in daily life: I. Getting the basics

2007 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
André Palmini ◽  
Victor Geraldi Haase
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Moral Issues ◽  
Temporal Perspective ◽  
Prefrontal Cortical ◽  
Cortical Regions

Abstract The constant conflict between decisions leading to immediate pleasurable consequences versus behaviors aiming at long-term social advantages is reviewed here in the framework of the evolutionary systems regulating behavior. The inescapable temporal perspective in decision-making in everyday life is highlighted and integrated with the role of the executive functions in the modulation of subcortical systems. In particular, the representations of the 'non-existent' future in the prefrontal cortical regions and how these representations can bridge theory and practice in everyday life are addressed. Relevant discussions regarding the battle between emotions and reasons in the determination of more complex decisions in the realm of neuroeconomics and in moral issues have been reserved for a second essay.

scholarly journals Amygdala-Prefrontal Cortical Circuitry Regulates Effort-Based Decision Making

2006 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 251-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. B. Floresco ◽  
S. Ghods-Sharifi
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Cortical Circuitry ◽  
Prefrontal Cortical

scholarly journals Systematic Exploration and Uncertainty Dominate Young Children’s Choices

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathaniel J. Blanco ◽  
Vladimir Sloutsky
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Young Children ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Exploration And Exploitation ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Reward Seeking ◽  
Systematic Fashion ◽  
Systematic Exploration ◽  
Competing Demands ◽  
Exploration Exploitation

Organisms need to constantly balance the competing demands of gathering information and using previously acquired information to obtain rewarding outcomes (i.e., the “exploration- exploitation” dilemma). Exploration is critical to obtain information to discover how the world works, which should be particularly important for young children. While studies have shown that young children explore in response to surprising events, little is known about how they balance exploration and exploitation across multiple decisions or about how this process changes with development. In this study we compare decision-making patterns of children and adults and evaluate the relative influences of reward-seeking, random exploration, and systematic switching (which approximates uncertainty-directed exploration). In a second experiment we directly test the effect of uncertainty on children’s choices. Influential models of decision-making generally describe systematic exploration as a computationally refined capacity that relies on top-down cognitive control. We demonstrate that (1) systematic patterns dominate young children’s behavior (facilitating exploration), despite protracted development of cognitive control, and (2) that uncertainty plays a major, but complicated, role in determining children’s choices. We conclude that while young children’s immature top-down control should hinder adult-like systematic exploration, other mechanisms may pick up the slack, facilitating broad information gathering in a systematic fashion to build a foundation of knowledge for use later in life.

scholarly journals Prefrontal Cortical Contribution to Risk-Based Decision Making

2009 ◽  
Vol 20 (8) ◽  
pp. 1816-1828 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. R. St. Onge ◽  
S. B. Floresco
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Prefrontal Cortical

scholarly journals Paraventricular thalamus controls behavior during motivational conflict

IBRO Reports ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. S68
Author(s):  
Eun A. Choi ◽  
Philip Jean-Richard-Dit-Bressel ◽  
Collin Clifford ◽  
Gavan Mcnally
Keyword(s):  
Paraventricular Thalamus ◽  
Motivational Conflict

scholarly journals The Role of Passing Time in Decision-Making

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan J. Evans ◽  
Guy Hawkins ◽  
Scott Brown
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Task Design ◽  
Perceptual Decision Making ◽  
Improve Performance ◽  
Decision Speed ◽  
Decision Environments ◽  
Threshold Amount ◽  
And Task ◽  
Response Deadlines

Theories of perceptual decision-making have been dominated by the idea that evidence accumulates in favor of different alternatives until some fixed threshold amount is reached, which triggers a decision. Recent theories have suggested that these thresholds may not be fixed during each decision, but change as time passes. These collapsing thresholds can improve performance in particular decision environments, but reviews of data from typical decision-making paradigms have failed to support collapsing thresholds. We designed three experiments to test collapsing threshold assumptions in decision environments specifically tailored to make them optimal. An emphasis on decision speed encouraged the adoption of collapsing thresholds – most strongly through the use of response deadlines, but also through instruction to a lesser extent – but setting an explicit goal of reward rate optimality through both instructions and task design did not. Our results provide a new explanation for previous findings regarding decision-making differences between humans and non-human primates.

scholarly journals Cognitive experience alters cortical involvement in navigation decisions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher D Harvey ◽  
Charlotte Arlt ◽  
Roberto Barroso-Luque ◽  
Shinichiro Kira ◽  
Carissa A Bruno ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Neural Activity ◽  
Calcium Imaging ◽  
Posterior Parietal Cortex ◽  
Retrosplenial Cortex ◽  
Neuron Activity ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Simple Task ◽  
Critical Determinant ◽  
Cortical Areas

The neural correlates of decision-making have been investigated extensively, and recent work aims to identify under what conditions cortex is actually necessary for making accurate decisions. We discovered that mice with distinct cognitive experiences, beyond sensory and motor learning, use different cortical areas and neural activity patterns to solve the same task, revealing past learning as a critical determinant of whether cortex is necessary for decision-making. We used optogenetics and calcium imaging to study the necessity and neural activity of multiple cortical areas in mice with different training histories. Posterior parietal cortex and retrosplenial cortex were mostly dispensable for accurate decision-making in mice performing a simple navigation-based decision task. In contrast, these areas were essential for the same simple task when mice were previously trained on complex tasks with delay periods or association switches. Multi-area calcium imaging showed that, in mice with complex-task experience, single-neuron activity had higher selectivity and neuron-neuron correlations were weaker, leading to codes with higher task information. Therefore, past experience sets the landscape for how future tasks are solved by the brain and is a key factor in determining whether cortical areas have a causal role in decision-making.

scholarly journals Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex Activity and Sympathetic Allostasis During Value-Based Ambivalence

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neil M. Dundon ◽  
Allison D. Shapiro ◽  
Viktoriya Babenko ◽  
Gold N. Okafor ◽  
Scott T. Grafton
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Time Scales ◽  
Stress Responses ◽  
Parallel Imaging ◽  
Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Avoidance Task ◽  
Cortical Input ◽  
Approach Avoidance

Anxiety is characterized by low confidence in daily decisions, coupled with high levels of phenomenological stress. Ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) plays an integral role in maladaptive anxious behaviors via decreased sensitivity to threatening vs. non-threatening stimuli (fear generalization). vmPFC is also a key node in approach-avoidance decision making requiring two-dimensional integration of rewards and costs. More recently, vmPFC has been implicated as a key cortical input to the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system. However, little is known about the role of this brain region in mediating rapid stress responses elicited by changes in confidence during decision making. We used an approach-avoidance task to examine the relationship between sympathetically mediated cardiac stress responses, vmPFC activity and choice behavior over long and short time-scales. To do this, we collected concurrent fMRI, EKG and impedance cardiography recordings of sympathetic drive while participants made approach-avoidance decisions about monetary rewards paired with painful electric shock stimuli. We observe first that increased sympathetic drive (shorter pre-ejection period) in states lasting minutes are associated with choices involving reduced decision ambivalence. Thus, on this slow time scale, sympathetic drive serves as a proxy for “mobilization” whereby participants are more likely to show consistent value-action mapping. In parallel, imaging analyses reveal that on shorter time scales (estimated with a trial-to-trial GLM), increased vmPFC activity, particularly during low-ambivalence decisions, is associated with decreased sympathetic state. Our findings support a role of sympathetic drive in resolving decision ambivalence across long time horizons and suggest a potential role of vmPFC in modulating this response on a moment-to-moment basis.

scholarly journals Cortical state fluctuations during sensory decision making

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elina A. K. Jacobs ◽  
Nicholas A. Steinmetz ◽  
Matteo Carandini ◽  
Kenneth D. Harris
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Task Performance ◽  
Calcium Imaging ◽  
Sensory Modality ◽  
Task Engagement ◽  
Sensory Cortex ◽  
Auditory Task

Neocortical activity varies between states of “synchronization” and “desynchronization”, with desynchronized states believed to occur specifically in regions engaged by the task. To disambiguate whether desynchronization is linked to task performance or engagement, we trained mice on tasks in which incorrect responses due to disengagement (neglect) differed from inaccurate task performance (incorrect choices). Using widefield calcium imaging to measure cortical state across many areas simultaneously, we found that desynchronization was correlated with engagement rather than accuracy. Consistent with this link between desynchronization and engagement, we found that rewards had a long-lasting desynchronizing effect. To determine whether engagement-related changes in cortical state depended on the sensory modality, we trained mice on visual and auditory task versions and found that desynchronization was similar in both and more pronounced in somatomotor than either sensory cortex. We conclude that variations in cortical state are predominately global and closely relate to variations in task engagement.

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