A causal role for right frontopolar cortex in directed, but not random, exploration
- University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Poland
- Nencki Institute, Poland
Abstract
The explore-exploit dilemma occurs anytime we must choose between exploring unknown options for information and exploiting known resources for reward. Previous work suggests that people use two different strategies to solve the explore-exploit dilemma: directed exploration, driven by information seeking, and random exploration, driven by decision noise. Here, we show that these two strategies rely on different neural systems. Using transcranial magnetic stimulation to inhibit the right frontopolar cortex, we were able to selectively inhibit directed exploration while leaving random exploration intact. This suggests a causal role for right frontopolar cortex in directed, but not random, exploration and that directed and random exploration rely on (at least partially) dissociable neural systems.
Data availability
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A causal role for right frontopolar cortex in directed, but not random, explorationPublicly accessible via the Harvard Dataverse website (https://dx.doi.org/10.7910/DVN/CZT6EE).
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
No external funding was received for this work.
Reviewing Editor
- Michael J Frank, Brown University, United States
Ethics
Human subjects: All participants were informed about potential risks connected to TMS and signed a written consent. The study was approved by University of Social Sciences and Humanities ethics committee.
Version history
- Received: April 4, 2017
- Accepted: September 14, 2017
- Accepted Manuscript published: September 15, 2017 (version 1)
- Version of Record published: October 4, 2017 (version 2)
Copyright
© 2017, Zajkowski 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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A causal role for right frontopolar cortex in directed, but not random, exploration
eLife 6:e27430.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.27430
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