AMYGDALA DYNAMICS DURING FLEXIBLE VALUE-BASED DECISION MAKING

Adaptive behavior requires learning the value of environmental options and flexibly updating actions when contingencies change. The basolateral amygdala (BLA) has been implicated in affective learning and goal-directed behavior, yet how local neuronal populations coordinate activity during ongoing decision-making remains unclear.
To address this, we developed a freely moving two-alternative unforced choice task in which mice continuously adapt their choices following unsignaled changes in outcome value. Using head-mounted miniscope calcium imaging, we recorded large populations of genetically identified BLA neurons across learning- and expert-stage performance.
Population activity exhibited structured dynamics aligned to distinct behavioral phases, including reward expectation, exploitation, and action adaptation after contingency switches, pointing to a role for BLA circuits in organizing task engagement and action selection rather than solely encoding reward outcomes.
Together, these results provide an integrated view of amygdala network function during flexible value-based decision making.