The role of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex in abstract state-based inference during decision making in humans.

Full Abstract

Many real-life decision-making problems incorporate higher-order structure, involving interdependencies between different stimuli, actions, and subsequent rewards. It is not known whether brain regions implicated in decision making, such as the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), use a stored model of the task structure to guide choice (model-based decision making) or merely learn action or state values without assuming higher-order structure as in standard reinforcement learning. To discriminate between these possibilities, we scanned human subjects with functional magnetic resonance imaging while they performed a simple decision-making task with higher-order structure, probabilistic reversal learning. We found that neural activity in a key decision-making region, the vmPFC, was more consistent with a computational model that exploits higher-order structure than with simple reinforcement learning. These results suggest that brain regions, such as the vmPFC, use an abstract model of task structure to guide behavioral choice, computations that may underlie the human capacity for complex social interactions and abstract strategizing.

Learn Faster Today Improve your study skills

Author information

Author/s: Hampton, Alan N (AN); Bossaerts, Peter (P); O'Doherty, John P (JP);

Affiliation: Computation and Neural Systems Program, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA.

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Randomized Controlled Trial; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't; Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

Journal: The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience (J Neurosci), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2006-Aug; vol 26 (issue 32) : pp 8360-7

Dates: Created 2006/08/10; Completed 2006/09/05; Revised 2006/11/15;

PMID: 16899731, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

Comments and Corrections

CommentIn: J Neurosci. 2006 Nov 8;26(45):11511-2. (PMID: 17106946)

External Links for this article (including full text providers, if available):

Click Electronic Full-text Provider Links to see options for finding the electronic full text links to this article. Note there may be a subscription or fee required for access to the full text. See our FAQ for information on finding FREE full text articles.

This article may also be located in paper journal collections available in many libraries. Use the Journal and Publication Information above to find the full article.

MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Action Potentials - physiology
Brain Mapping
Cognition - physiology
Decision Making - physiology
Discrimination Learning - physiology
Female

These are the highest related articles currently in the database:

See 100+ related articles.