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Contextual modulation of reward signals across object and spatial reversal learning tasks in the rhesus macaque brain

Jerome Sallet, Mathilde Lojkiewiez, Elsa Fouragnan, Bolton Chau, Poullias Claire, Urs Schuffelgen, Maryann Noonan, Matthew Rushworth

Date / Location: Sunday, 10 July 2022 / S02-098
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Aims. Decision-making situations could differ along many dimensions such the nature of the action to take, or the identity of the option to choose from. To make such decisions in a changing environment, the brain needs to assign a value to each option, compare them to make a choice and update them based on the obtained outcome. We investigated how learning about spatial position or object identity are represented in specific brain areas and rely on similar computational principles. Methods. We used fMRI data from rhesus macaque performing deterministic reversal discrimination tasks in which they had to choose between stimuli with either different identities or target locations. Results. In previous studies, we linked an area located on the lateral part of the orbital surface (area 47/12o) to win-stay-lose-shift behaviours in object learning. In a spatial context, this region is important during the learning stage but did not show the same functional role in trained animals. We further investigated the fundamental difference between the two task contexts and found that a different pattern of activation in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex in processing reward information seems to originate an adaptive coding across contexts. While this region was functionally connected with the putamen in the two tasks, its activity was only correlated with activity in area 47/12o in the object context. Conclusion. Our findings reveal different recruitments of areas of the prefrontal cortex in object and spatial learning contexts and suggest that reward encoding is a main driver of these different network activities.