Topic: goal-directed decision-making

A prevailing theory in goal-directed decision-making is that the brain accumulates evidence over time to make perceptual decisions. However, even after two decades of studies on evidence accumulation, it is still unclear how neuronal populations cooperate to dynamically represent decision variables. This is because of a lack of tools for gaining experimental control over variables of interest to test their relationship to behavior. To address this gap, we develop a state-space control framework to causally interact with decision-related latent variables. To expose decision variables to target

In social species, signals from conspecifics can help interpret ambiguous sensory information crucial for survival, such as locating food sources or detecting predators. To investigate the influence of conspecific cues on goal-directed decision-making, we devised a two-alternative forced-choice task for pairs of freely moving mice positioned facing each other. Water-restricted mice were trained to discriminate between visual stimuli indicating the location of a water reward. To evaluate their reliance on conspecific cues under conditions of uncertainty, we positioned the reward on the same sid