Neuronal activity in dorsal anterior cingulate cortex during economic choices under variable action costs
- NYU Shanghai, China
- 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
Camillo Padoa-Schioppa
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.
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Neuronal activity in dorsal anterior cingulate cortex during economic choices under variable action costs
eLife 10:e71695.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.71695
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