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 Neural population dynamics underlying evidence accumulation in multiple rat brain regions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian DePasquale ◽  
Jonathan W Pillow ◽  
Carlos Brody
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Neural Activity ◽  
Posterior Parietal Cortex ◽  
Dorsal Striatum ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Neural Representation ◽  
Neural Population ◽  
Evidence Accumulation ◽  
Posterior Parietal ◽  
The Moment

Accumulating evidence in service of sensory decision making is a core cognitive function. However, previous work has focused either on the dynamics of neural activity during decision-making or on models of evidence accumulation governing behavior. We unify these two perspectives by introducing an evidence-accumulation framework that simultaneously describes multi-neuron population spiking activity and dynamic stimulus-driven behavior during sensory decision-making. We apply our method to behavioral choices and neural activity recorded from three brain regions - the posterior parietal cortex (PPC), the frontal orienting fields (FOF), and the anterior-dorsal striatum (ADS) - while rats performed a pulse-based accumulation task. The model accurately captures the relationship between stimuli and neural activity, the coordinated activity of neural populations, and the distribution of animal choices in response to the stimulus. Model fits show strikingly distinct accumulation models expressed within each brain region, and that all differ strongly from the accumulation strategy expressed at the level of choices. In particular, the FOF exhibited a suboptimal 'primacy' strategy, where early sensory evidence was favored. Including neural data in the model led to improved prediction of the moment-by-moment value of accumulated evidence and the intended-and ultimately made-choice of the animal. Our approach offers a window into the neural representation of accumulated evidence and provides a principled framework for incorporating neural responses into accumulation models.

scholarly journals Decomposing the neural pathways mediating value-based choice

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy R. Koscik ◽  
Vincent Man ◽  
Andrew Jahn ◽  
Christina H. Lee ◽  
William A. Cunningham
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Neural Activity ◽  
Mediation Analysis ◽  
Posterior Parietal Cortex ◽  
Ventral Striatum ◽  
Multilevel Modelling ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Expected Value ◽  
Outcome Evaluation ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractUnderstanding the neural implementation of value-based choice has been an important focus of neuroscience for several decades. Although a consensus has emerged regarding the brain regions involved, disagreement persists regarding precise regional functions and how value information flows between value-based choice regions.In the current study, we isolate neural activity related to decision-making using a gambling task where expected gains and losses are dissociated from the received outcomes of choices. We apply multilevel modelling and mediation analysis to formally test whether brain regions identified as part of the value-based choice network mediate between perceptions of expected value and choices to take or pass a gamble.A critical function in decision-making is accruing and representing value information to drive choice. Several regions have been assigned this role, including ventromedial prefrontal (vmPFC) and posterior parietal cortex (PPC), and the ventral striatum (VStr). The implied chain of events is one where regions that support the process of gathering relevant information mediate the relationship between choice and representations of value in other brain regions. Here, we formally test whether distinct brain regions express interregional mediation consistent with this chain of processes.We observe that activity in vmPFC does not predict choice, but rather is highly associated with outcome evaluation. By contrast, both PPC and VStr (bilaterally) mediate between expected value and choice. Interregional mediation analyses reveal that VStr fully mediates between PPC and choice. Together these results suggest that VStr, and not vmPFC nor PPC, functions as an important driver of late stage choice.Significance StatementMaking choices that maximize gain and minimize loss is critical for success. Our paradigm and analytic approach allowed isolation of choice-related neural signals from outcome-related signals. The vmPFC is involved at outcome rather than at choice. Isolating choice-related neural activity, we formally demonstrate that VStr and PPC mediate between expected value and choice. Our approach adds significant innovation by using generalized multilevel modelling to predict behavior with concurrent neural activity and formally testing the fully mediated pathway from stimulus through neural activity to behavior. Applying interregional multilevel mediation analysis, we demonstrate that ventral striatum comprises a final, critical step in processing value-based choice, mediating the relationship between value representation and choice.

scholarly journals Stable task information from an unstable neural population

eLife ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael E Rule ◽  
Adrianna R Loback ◽  
Dhruva V Raman ◽  
Laura N Driscoll ◽  
Christopher D Harvey ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Neural Activity ◽  
Calcium Imaging ◽  
Posterior Parietal Cortex ◽  
Learning Rule ◽  
Neural Population ◽  
Significant Component ◽  
Behavioral Variables ◽  
Posterior Parietal ◽  
Consistent Information

Over days and weeks, neural activity representing an animal’s position and movement in sensorimotor cortex has been found to continually reconfigure or ‘drift’ during repeated trials of learned tasks, with no obvious change in behavior. This challenges classical theories, which assume stable engrams underlie stable behavior. However, it is not known whether this drift occurs systematically, allowing downstream circuits to extract consistent information. Analyzing long-term calcium imaging recordings from posterior parietal cortex in mice (Mus musculus), we show that drift is systematically constrained far above chance, facilitating a linear weighted readout of behavioral variables. However, a significant component of drift continually degrades a fixed readout, implying that drift is not confined to a null coding space. We calculate the amount of plasticity required to compensate drift independently of any learning rule, and find that this is within physiologically achievable bounds. We demonstrate that a simple, biologically plausible local learning rule can achieve these bounds, accurately decoding behavior over many days.

A Bird in the Hand Isn’t Good for Long

2018 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Scherbaum ◽  
Simon Frisch ◽  
Maja Dshemuchadse
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
The Other ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Additional Time ◽  
Control Processes ◽  
Folk Wisdom ◽  
Study Participants ◽  
Insight Into

Abstract. Folk wisdom tells us that additional time to make a decision helps us to refrain from the first impulse to take the bird in the hand. However, the question why the time to decide plays an important role is still unanswered. Here we distinguish two explanations, one based on a bias in value accumulation that has to be overcome with time, the other based on cognitive control processes that need time to set in. In an intertemporal decision task, we use mouse tracking to study participants’ responses to options’ values and delays which were presented sequentially. We find that the information about options’ delays does indeed lead to an immediate bias that is controlled afterwards, matching the prediction of control processes needed to counter initial impulses. Hence, by using a dynamic measure, we provide insight into the processes underlying short-term oriented choices in intertemporal decision making.

scholarly journals Evidence accumulation relates to perceptual consciousness and monitoring

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Pereira ◽  
Pierre Megevand ◽  
Mi Xue Tan ◽  
Wenwen Chang ◽  
Shuo Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Posterior Parietal Cortex ◽  
Detection Threshold ◽  
Task Demands ◽  
Neuron Activity ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Neuronal Responses ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Perceptual Consciousness ◽  
Evidence Accumulation ◽  
Posterior Parietal

AbstractA fundamental scientific question concerns the neural basis of perceptual consciousness and perceptual monitoring resulting from the processing of sensory events. Although recent studies identified neurons reflecting stimulus visibility, their functional role remains unknown. Here, we show that perceptual consciousness and monitoring involve evidence accumulation. We recorded single-neuron activity in a participant with a microelectrode in the posterior parietal cortex, while they detected vibrotactile stimuli around detection threshold and provided confidence estimates. We find that detected stimuli elicited neuronal responses resembling evidence accumulation during decision-making, irrespective of motor confounds or task demands. We generalize these findings in healthy volunteers using electroencephalography. Behavioral and neural responses are reproduced with a computational model considering a stimulus as detected if accumulated evidence reaches a bound, and confidence as the distance between maximal evidence and that bound. We conclude that gradual changes in neuronal dynamics during evidence accumulation relates to perceptual consciousness and perceptual monitoring in humans.

Evaluating Risk-Propensity Assessment Methods: Patterns in Repeated Exposure to Emotional Stimuli

2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 283-287
Author(s):  
Sahinya Susindar ◽  
Harrison Wissel-Littmann ◽  
Terry Ho ◽  
Thomas K. Ferris
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Emotion Regulation ◽  
Assessment Method ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Emotional States ◽  
Affective States ◽  
Risk Propensity ◽  
Emotional Stimuli ◽  
Comparison Results

In studying naturalistic human decision-making, it is important to understand how emotional states shape decision-making processes and outcomes. Emotion regulation techniques can improve the quality of decisions, but there are several challenges to evaluating these techniques in a controlled research context. Determining the effectiveness of emotion regulation techniques requires methodology that can: 1) reliably elicit desired emotions in decision-makers; 2) include decision tasks with response measures that are sensitive to emotional loading; and 3) support repeated exposures/trials with relatively-consistent emotional loading and response sensitivity. The current study investigates one common method, the Balloon Analog Risk Task (BART), for its consistency and reliability in measuring the risk-propensity of decision-makers, and specifically how the method’s effectiveness might change over the course of repeated exposures. With the PANASX subjective assessment serving for comparison, results suggest the BART assessment method, when applied over repeated exposures, is reduced in its sensitivity to emotional stimuli and exhibits decision task-related learning effects which influence the observed trends in response data in complex ways. This work is valuable for researchers in decision-making and to guide design for humans with consideration for their affective states.

Neural activity in the dorsal striatum during cognitive decision making

2010 ◽  
Vol 68 ◽  
pp. e299
Author(s):  
Satoshi Nonomura ◽  
Kazuyuki Samejima ◽  
Kenji Doya ◽  
Jun Tanji
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Neural Activity ◽  
Dorsal Striatum ◽  
Cognitive Decision

scholarly journals Mental Rotation Meets the Motion Aftereffect: The Role of hV5/MT+ in Visual Mental Imagery

2011 ◽  
Vol 23 (6) ◽  
pp. 1395-1404 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Seurinck ◽  
Floris P. de Lange ◽  
Erik Achten ◽  
Guy Vingerhoets
Keyword(s):  
Mental Rotation ◽  
Mental Imagery ◽  
Parietal Cortex ◽  
Neural Activity ◽  
Posterior Parietal Cortex ◽  
Visual Motion ◽  
Motion Aftereffect ◽  
Mental Rotation Task ◽  
Behavioral Performance ◽  
Visual Mental Imagery

A growing number of studies show that visual mental imagery recruits the same brain areas as visual perception. Although the necessity of hV5/MT+ for motion perception has been revealed by means of TMS, its relevance for motion imagery remains unclear. We induced a direction-selective adaptation in hV5/MT+ by means of an MAE while subjects performed a mental rotation task that elicits imagined motion. We concurrently measured behavioral performance and neural activity with fMRI, enabling us to directly assess the effect of a perturbation of hV5/MT+ on other cortical areas involved in the mental rotation task. The activity in hV5/MT+ increased as more mental rotation was required, and the perturbation of hV5/MT+ affected behavioral performance as well as the neural activity in this area. Moreover, several regions in the posterior parietal cortex were also affected by this perturbation. Our results show that hV5/MT+ is required for imagined visual motion and engages in an interaction with parietal cortex during this cognitive process.

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