Neuronal activity in dorsal anterior cingulate cortex during economic choices under variable action costs

  1. Xinying Cai  Is a corresponding author
  2. Camillo Padoa-Schioppa
  1. NYU Shanghai, China
  2. Washington University in St Louis, United States

Abstract

The role of the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (ACCd) in decision making has often been discussed but remains somewhat unclear. On the one hand, numerous studies implicated this area in decisions driven by effort or action cost. On the other hand, work on economic choices between goods (under fixed action costs) found that neurons in ACCd encoded only post-decision variables. To advance our understanding of the role played by this area in decision making, we trained monkeys to choose between different goods (juice types) offered in variable amounts and with different action costs. Importantly, the task design dissociated computation of the action cost from planning of any particular action. Neurons in ACCd encoded the chosen value and the binary choice outcome in several reference frames (chosen juice, chosen cost, chosen action). Thus, this area provided a rich representation of post-decision variables. In contrast to the OFC, neurons in ACCd did not represent pre-decision variables such as individual offer values in any reference frame. Hence, ongoing decisions are unlikely guided by ACCd. Conversely, neuronal activity in this area might inform subsequent actions.

Data availability

All data generated or analysed during this study are included in the manuscript and supporting files.

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Xinying Cai

    NYU Shanghai, Shanghai, China
    For correspondence
    xinying.cai@nyu.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-4997-9793
  2. Camillo Padoa-Schioppa

    Department of Neuroscience, Washington University in St Louis, Saint Louis, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-7519-8790

Funding

National Institute of Mental Health (R01-DA032758)

  • Camillo Padoa-Schioppa

National Natural Science Foundation of China (grants 31571102 and 91632106)

  • Xinying Cai

Ministry of Education Program of Introducing Talents of Discipline to Universities (Base B16018)

  • Xinying Cai

NYU-ECNU Institute of Brain and Cognitive Science at NYU Shanghai (Joint Research Institute Seed Grants for Research Collaboration)

  • Xinying Cai

Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (grants 15JC1400104 and 16JC1400101)

  • Xinying Cai

the Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Major Project (2018SHZDZX05)

  • Xinying Cai

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 experimental procedures conformed to the NIH Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals and were approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) at Washington University.

Copyright

© 2021, Cai & Padoa-Schioppa

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.

Metrics

  • 946
    views
  • 140
    downloads
  • 10
    citations

Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.

Download links

A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.

Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)

Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)

Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)

  1. Xinying Cai
  2. Camillo Padoa-Schioppa
(2021)
Neuronal activity in dorsal anterior cingulate cortex during economic choices under variable action costs
eLife 10:e71695.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.71695

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.71695

Further reading

    1. Neuroscience
    Gáspár Oláh, Rajmund Lákovics ... Gábor Tamás
    Research Article

    Human-specific cognitive abilities depend on information processing in the cerebral cortex, where the neurons are significantly larger and their processes longer and sparser compared to rodents. We found that, in synaptically connected layer 2/3 pyramidal cells (L2/3 PCs), the delay in signal propagation from soma to soma is similar in humans and rodents. To compensate for the longer processes of neurons, membrane potential changes in human axons and/or dendrites must propagate faster. Axonal and dendritic recordings show that the propagation speed of action potentials (APs) is similar in human and rat axons, but the forward propagation of excitatory postsynaptic potentials (EPSPs) and the backward propagation of APs are 26 and 47% faster in human dendrites, respectively. Experimentally-based detailed biophysical models have shown that the key factor responsible for the accelerated EPSP propagation in human cortical dendrites is the large conductance load imposed at the soma by the large basal dendritic tree. Additionally, larger dendritic diameters and differences in cable and ion channel properties in humans contribute to enhanced signal propagation. Our integrative experimental and modeling study provides new insights into the scaling rules that help maintain information processing speed albeit the large and sparse neurons in the human cortex.

    1. Neuroscience
    Jacob A Miller
    Insight

    When navigating environments with changing rules, human brain circuits flexibly adapt how and where we retain information to help us achieve our immediate goals.