Mesencephalic representations of recent experience influence decision making
- University of Colorado School of Medicine, United States
Abstract
Decisions are influenced by recent experience, but the neural basis for this phenomenon is not well understood. Here we address this question in the context of action selection. We focused on activity in the pedunculopontine tegmental nucleus (PPTg), a mesencephalic region that provides input to several nuclei in the action selection network, in well-trained mice selecting actions based on sensory cues and recent trial history. We found that, at the time of action selection, the activity of many PPTg neurons reflected the action on the previous trial and its outcome, and the strength of this activity predicted the upcoming choice. Further, inactivating the PPTg predictably decreased the influence of recent experience on action selection. These findings suggest that PPTg input to downstream motor regions, where it can be integrated with other relevant information, provides a simple mechanism for incorporating recent experience into the computations underlying action selection.
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Funding
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
- Gidon Felsen
Boettcher Foundation
- Gidon Felsen
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (P30NS048154)
- Gidon Felsen
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Animal experimentation: All experiments were performed according to protocols approved by the University of Colorado School of Medicine Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (protocol #: B-90215(11)1D).
Copyright
© 2016, Thompson et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Mesencephalic representations of recent experience influence decision making
eLife 5:e16572.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.16572
