Medial frontal cortical areas are thought to play a critical role in the brain’s ability to flexibly deploy strategies that are effective in complex settings, yet the underlying circuit computations remain unclear. Here, by examining neural ensemble activity in male rats that sample different strategies in a self-guided search for latent task structure, we observe robust tracking during strategy execution of a summary statistic for that strategy in recent behavioral history by the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), especially by an area homologous to primate area 32D. Using the simplest summary statistic – strategy prevalence in the last 20 choices – we find that its encoding in the ACC during strategy execution is wide-scale, independent of reward delivery, and persists through a substantial ensemble reorganization that accompanies changes in global context. We further demonstrate that the tracking of reward by the ACC ensemble is also strategy-specific, but that reward prevalence is insufficient to explain the observed activity modulation during strategy execution. Our findings argue that ACC ensemble dynamics is structured by a summary statistic of recent behavioral choices, raising the possibility that ACC plays a role in estimating – through statistical learning – which actions promote the occurrence of events in the environment.

Several discrete groups of feeding-regulated neurons in the nucleus of the solitary tract (nucleus tractus solitarius; NTS) suppress food intake, including avoidance-promoting neurons that express Cck (NTS^Cck cells) and distinct Lepr- and Calcr-expressing neurons (NTS^Lepr and NTS^Calcr cells, respectively) that suppress food intake without promoting avoidance. To test potential synergies among these cell groups we manipulated multiple NTS cell populations simultaneously. We found that activating multiple sets of NTS neurons (e.g., NTS^Lepr plus NTS^Calcr (NTS^LC), or NTS^LC plus NTS^Cck (NTS^LCK)) suppressed feeding more robustly than activating single populations. While activating groups of cells that include NTS^Cck neurons promoted conditioned taste avoidance (CTA), NTS^LC activation produced no CTA despite abrogating feeding. Thus, the ability to promote CTA formation represents a dominant effect but activating multiple non-aversive populations augments the suppression of food intake without provoking avoidance. Furthermore, silencing multiple NTS neuron groups augmented food intake and body weight to a greater extent than silencing single populations, consistent with the notion that each of these NTS neuron populations plays crucial and cumulative roles in the control of energy balance. We found that silencing NTS^LCK neurons failed to blunt the weight-loss response to vertical sleeve gastrectomy (VSG) and that feeding activated many non-NTS^LCK neurons, however, suggesting that as-yet undefined NTS cell types must make additional contributions to the restraint of feeding.