Coherent theta activity in the medial and orbital frontal cortices encodes reward value

Abstract
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Abstract

This study examined how the medial frontal (MFC) and orbital frontal (OFC) cortices process reward information. We simultaneously recorded local field potentials in the two areas as rats consumed liquid sucrose rewards. Both areas exhibited a 4-8 Hz 'theta' rhythm that was phase locked to the lick cycle. The rhythm tracked shifts in sucrose concentrations and fluid volumes, demonstrating that it is sensitive to differences in reward magnitude. The coupling between the rhythm and licking was stronger in MFC than OFC and varied with response vigor and absolute reward value in the MFC. Spectral analysis revealed zero-lag coherence between the cortical areas, and found evidence for a directionality of the rhythm, with MFC leading OFC. Our findings suggest that consummatory behavior generates simultaneous theta range activity in the MFC and OFC that encodes the value of consumed fluids, with the MFC having a top-down role in the control of consumption.

Data availability

Code, raw data, and summaries of grouped data are available on the Open Science Framework.

The following data sets were generated

1. Amarante L
2. Laubach M
(2021) Coherent theta activity in the medial and orbital frontal cortices encodes reward value
OSF, de78t.

https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/63372/osf.io/de78t

Article and author information

Author details

Linda M Amarante

Neuroscience, American University, Washington, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-3592-7346
Mark Laubach

Neuroscience, American University, Washington, United States

For correspondence
mark.laubach@american.edu

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-2403-4497

Funding

National Institute on Drug Abuse (DA046375)

Mark Laubach

National Science Foundation (GRP)

Linda M Amarante

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 procedures carried out in this set of experiments were approved by the Animal Care and Use Committee at American University (Washington, DC). The approved protocol number is 1710. All procedures conformed to the standards of the National Institutes of Health Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. All efforts were taken to minimize the number of animals used and to reduce pain and suffering.

Copyright

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.