Inverted activity patterns in ventromedial prefrontal cortex during value-guided decision-making in a less-is-more task

Georgios K. Papageorgiou (), Jerome Sallet, Marco K. Wittmann, Bolton K. H. Chau, Urs Schüffelgen, Mark J. Buckley and Matthew F. S. Rushworth
Additional contact information
Georgios K. Papageorgiou: Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford
Jerome Sallet: Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford
Marco K. Wittmann: Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford
Bolton K. H. Chau: Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford
Urs Schüffelgen: Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford
Mark J. Buckley: Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford
Matthew F. S. Rushworth: Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford

Nature Communications, 2017, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-14

Abstract: Abstract Ventromedial prefrontal cortex has been linked to choice evaluation and decision-making in humans but understanding the role it plays is complicated by the fact that little is known about the corresponding area of the macaque brain. We recorded activity in macaques using functional magnetic resonance imaging during two very different value-guided decision-making tasks. In both cases ventromedial prefrontal cortex activity reflected subjective choice values during decision-making just as in humans but the relationship between the blood oxygen level-dependent signal and both decision-making and choice value was inverted and opposite to the relationship seen in humans. In order to test whether the ventromedial prefrontal cortex activity related to choice values is important for decision-making we conducted an additional lesion experiment; lesions that included the same ventromedial prefrontal cortex region disrupted normal subjective evaluation of choices during decision-making.

Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-01833-5 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:8:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-017-01833-5

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-01833-5

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().