Year: 2012
Type: article
Abstract: Estimating the value of potential actions is crucial for learning and adaptive behavior. We know little about how the human brain represents action-specific value outside of motor areas. This is, in part, due to a difficulty in detecting the neural correlates of value using conventional (region of interest) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) analyses, due to a potential distributed representation of value. We address this limitation by applying a recently developed multivariate decoding method to high-resolution fMRI data in subjects performing an instrumental learning task. We found evidence for action-specific value signals in circumscribed regions, specifically ventromedial prefrontal cortex, putamen, thalamus, and insula cortex. In contrast, action-independent value signals were more widely represented across a large set of brain areas. Using multivariate Bayesian model comparison, we formally tested whether value-specific responses are spatially distributed or coherent. We found strong evidence that both action-specific and action-independent value signals are represented in a distributed fashion. Our results suggest that a surprisingly large number of classical reward-related areas contain distributed representations of action-specific values, representations that are likely to mediate between reward and adaptive behavior.
Source: Journal of Neuroscience
Institution: Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Funder: Wellcome Trust
Awards: Core support for the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, The role of emotion in decision making., The role of emotion in decision making, The neurobiology of motivation in health and disease., G544810358, Core support for the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging., Functional architectures in the brain.
OpenAlex ID: W2052480631